


Even Time Can Change

by Slimmeh_Slime



Category: The Pirate's Fate (Visual Novel)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Not all Transformations will be included, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Abuse, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2019-10-01 02:47:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17235902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slimmeh_Slime/pseuds/Slimmeh_Slime
Summary: Mila had a simple life as a spice merchant. Not that it was particularly boring, but nothing exciting or overly bombastic interrupted her daily life of buying, selling, and sailing. For the most part, one could even say it was peaceful.Then, the Dread Pirates crashed into her life, “invited” her to become a pirate, and together they embarked on a literally transformative quest to collect magical coins that would often end up with people dying in the process.This happened several times.





	1. The Unknown and The Familiar

“Is she… Is she dead?”

He really hoped that the unconscious cat now splayed out on the floor isn’t dead. If she is, then it would be rather uncomfortable taking the coin from her body that, in a moment of serendipity and poor circumstance, Leeko had found floating on a piece of driftwood after the storm. Not to mention, Darious really just didn’t like seeing people dead.

Apparently, the female bat standing right next to him does not have any of the qualms that he does.

“We’ve waited long enough. Let’s just take what we want, throw her overboard and be done with it,” Morgana remarks.

He’s just about to give in and take the necklace when the cat’s eyes start to flutter. Good, she is alive! Perhaps he can convince her to join their crew; they could certainly use the help finding the coins, and fate has somehow brought one of the coins’ bearers right to them.

“That’s enough, Morgana. She’s opening her eyes…”

Slowly, the cat’s eyes open fully, and Darious takes the time for her to regain awareness to really look at her. The blue turban-like hat sat peacefully on her head, and the lapis-lazuli poncho and the white undershirt with the open sleeves reminded him of Leeko; fitting, seeing how they are (was, in Leeko’s, and maybe soon to be this lady’s cases) both merchants. Although, her attire seemed much more coastal than Leeko’s, with the knotted skirt and binded leggings.

The cat blearily starts to get up and... just stands there, calmly examining the room.

Okay, that was… peculiar, to say the least. He’s certain that he would’ve been panicking and shouting by now if he had woken up in a ship he didn't recognize. Maybe she was semi-conscious during the storm and expected to be dead right now? Is she still in shock?

“Oi, what are you looking at?! You’re just going to ignore the two people right in front of you? Captain, let’s teach her a lesson…”

Well, Morgana is already on that front. Still, no use in pushing around a young merchant who’s just woken up in their ship, especially when she was as mute as this.

“No need for that, Morgana.” Although, if he was honest, he appreciated her pointing out the obvious strangeness of her actions; it saved him from having to be interrogative  with a stranger. “I apologize for… certain members of my crew. They’re a little overzealous, but you’ll find they have laudable intentions. Your ship… a merchant vessel, right?”

The girl slowly nods at him, looking up at him. He has to pause for a moment due to the eye contact; there was a haunted look in her eyes, as if she's been to Hell and back. She looked tired, yet she had a steely conviction that Darious has no idea as to what it could mean. More importantly, why did she look that way?

“We-Well, it was completely destroyed in the storm last night.” There's no response from her. “One of our crew members spotted you floating unconscious on some driftwood, then we pulled you aboard.”

... Damn, her stare was really piercing into him.  

“We weren’t sure you were going to make it. Why don’t you tell us your name?” he manages to finish. At least now, they’re going somewhere with this stilted conversation.

After another another pause, softly, she says “...I’m Mila.”

“Nice to meet you, Mila.”

...Well, now they’re back to square one. Morgana looks baffled, and Darious couldn’t empathize more with her if he tried. What now? She has the coin, and… wait, he was going to invite her to the crew!

“We call ourselves the Dread Pirates, but don’t let the name mislead you. We’re not exactly dangerous brigands, or anything like that.” There, that sounds like a good introduction to the group; let her know that she’s in safe hands.

“Don’t sell us short, Captain,” Morgana says. She seems to have returned back to her normal boisterous personality. “We’re terrifying all right!”

Before Darious can make a retort to that statement, that _no Mila, we’re really not that dangerous, please don’t be afraid of us_ , Mila speaks up.

“I’ve heard of your crew before. Treasure hunters, right?”

 _That_ was incredibly strange. So far, they hadn’t done anything quite notorious to reach all the way out in this region; the name “Dread Pirates” only came up because other explorers had gotten peeved at their speed in discoveries and exploits. In addition, any and all the public gossip about them would’ve surely been in a negative light due to being labeled as pirates and the fact that the crew wasn’t really ever in public…

So how did this merchant, who definitely wore foreign clothes and looked quite young for being on such a merchant vessel, know that they were actually treasure hunters?

Could she be an undercover spy for another crew like, perhaps, Rourkie’s? That would explain how she knows about them, and makes her behavior from earlier somewhat plausible. But then, how was she on the merchant ship, and why didn’t she have a knife at their throats already? Furthermore, why didn’t she play dumb to get herself on their good side? She certainly would’ve tricked him, though maybe not Morgana and Leeko.

Darious’s thought process is abruptly broken by a yelp of pain. Shifting back to the situation at hand, he finds that an outraged Morgana has Mila already pinned to the wall, where Mila’s facial expression has distinctly changed to something of immediate fear, but more regretful if he had to describe it. It's unsettling from a stranger, at the least.

“Who are you?!” Morgana barks. “First, you wake up on our ship, like it’s your goddamn morning routine, and now you know who we are without any goddamn hints of what we do?! I knew we should’ve just thrown you overboard and--”

“Stop, Morgana! At least let her explain herself!” Darious commands. Surely, there had to be some logical explanation that _wasn’t_ Mila being a spy.

With a huff, Morgana begrudgingly backs off the wall that she was on, but her movements were much more cautious, her sword in her hand and ready to strike. Hopefully, they didn’t have to _kill_ somebody before they got the coin.

They watch Mila push herself back up from the bent-over-backwards position that Morgana had forced her into, and makes steady eye contact again with both of them. It isn’t any less unsettling than before.

“One of the merchants that I was traveling with had heard of the Dread Pirates. He had come over from Queen Nahkta’s monarchy over to our spice trade for… whatever reason. Maybe to introduce their kingdom to more exotic trade?”

The pause between her words isn’t exactly natural, but it isn’t enough to arouse enough suspicion to infer that she's lying. However, Darious increases his surveillance of her anyway; it could still be a trick, although her expression remained the same stony look. Unfortunately, subterfuge isn't exactly his forte, so he's left flailing for explanations.

“Anyways, he always told stories to the rest of us, of how _The Pirate’s Fate_ carried treasures like the famed Ambrosia and the mysterious Lunar-Eclipse Earrings, and that if we wanted to find something new, then we should try looking for the Dread Pirates and barter a deal with them.”

That...well, that seems reasonable. Assuming that one of the many crews competing with them had a merchant that left to chase after riches, he could see how that would work. Her story becomes even more credible when she mentions the treasures; he _does_ have a bottle of Ambrosia sitting on his table in his quarters, and he’s pretty sure that the Lunar-Eclipse Earrings is  _somewhere_ in that room. Those findings were from a decent time ago too, so any person chasing the same treasures as they were would’ve had ample time to travel to this region and join a band of merchants, but…

“What was his name? The merchant, I mean?” He feels dirty for doing this, but it’s the only way to possibly poke holes in her story. Not that he knows anyone in particular, but if Mila hesitates in giving them a name, it would be a  possible sign that she’s making up this story.

“His name is Indigo,” Mila says. “He is --was-- pretty… fantastical and strange when you first met him, but he’s--was-- attracted to these tales of fabled items and places.”

Huh. “Indigo” didn’t particularly sound like a name indigenous to Nahkta’s kingdom, but considering that he was a traveling merchant, he didn’t have to be. Her pauses make sense if she really was a merchant on the ship, and anyone would be shaken up by the thought of their friends dying. Just to make sure, he glances at Morgana to see if she recognizes the name from somewhere, but Morgana’s still focused on Mila.

“So what? You expect us to believe that he _just happened_ to tell you about us, and that you _just happened_ to show up as the only person alive, with the _exact_ coin that we’re looking for?” Morgana presses. Before she can push her any farther, Darious interrupts.

“Morgana, that’s enough!” At his shout, she visibly shrinks down, but she’s still glaring daggers at Mila. This is going to be especially difficult trying to assimilate a new crew member now, wasn't it?

On the other hand, Mila remains her eye contact with Darious, the blank look on her face never fading.

Wait, no, there’s definitely _something_ else in her expression. It’s not likely that Mila is working for a enemy crew, Darious surmises, but she’s obviously still scared and shaken up on the inside. She must’ve just tried to put on a brave front to deal with them, probably because the strangers who kept her in their ship reacted horribly to an offhand comment that she made.

Looking back in hindsight, he really should've expected this.

“Mila, would you care for a walk updeck? I promise, we’ve made a mistake assuming that you were our enemy.” 

“...Okay.” Mila takes slow steps to the stairs, where Darious is waiting for her, while Morgana’s eyes are locked on to her every movement.

Once they make it on deck, Darious guides her to the edge of the ship, his personal and discreet sign to Morgana to not interrupt them.

“Er, Darious?” 

He turns around, and he sees that Mila's demeanor has completely changed; she’s holding her own arm at her side, and she flinches when he faces her. Darious has to wait for her to continue.

With some obvious hesitation, Mila keeps going. “What did Morgana mean when she said that I have the ‘exact coin’ that you’re looking for?”

Perfect! Just what he wanted to talk to her about, and he didn't even have to bring it up himself! Was Fate finally cutting them a break on these coins?

“Well, that necklace you are wearing contains a coin. Does it have a inscription on the back?”

Instead of responding, Mila opens the necklaces, takes the coin out, and shows its back to Darious. Just as he expected, it’s one of the coins that they’re looking for; though why didn’t she just say that it had an inscription? She didn’t seem to be  _that_ trusting of him earlier… Anyways, he still doesn’t have a reason to doubt her at this point, though Leeko would probably be more paranoid at this point.

“Excellent. I’ve got one of those myself, and I know that there are more out there. Let me assure you, the mother lode is more valuable than you could possibly imagine. And we'll share equally in the rewards.”

This time, he gets a side eye as she puts the coin back inside the necklace. “Okay, but why is it important? I got this as part of a barter fairly recently. Also, ‘we all’? What does that mean?”

He has to think of how he wants to word this, but if Darious could convince Leeko, the most doubtful man he had ever met, to join the crew, he could definitely answer some mundane questions with some logical answers. 

“To answer that last question, your ship is destroyed, so you’re stuck here for the time being. I can’t force you to help us, but it would be appreciated. What do you say? Would you like to join the Dread Pirates?” Darious puts all his charisma and charm into those last two sentences, but Mila appears unaffected by his enthusiasm. 

“You’re doing a good job of dodging my first question," she points out. 

He can already see Morgana in the back seething at her words, but, to be fair, he did intentionally step over the first question. He was hoping that he could discuss in detail about that later, once Mila has gotten accustomed to the crew, but she's more witty than what he expected. Strange, for sure, but witty.

“Well, it’s a bit of long story. I’ll explain more later, but to sum it up, the coins may be the key to changing the world. They’re part of a old tale I heard--”

“Why would you want to change the world?” Mila shoots back, and at this point, Morgana is already stomping up to them. He’s got only a couple moments to convince her to join.

“Like I said, I’ll explain it later. So, are you in?” Come on, please join, or else they’re going to have to take that coin by force…

She sighs. “...it’s the least I can do after you saved my life. Of course I’ll join if you’ll have me,” and Darious tries his best to hold in his relief. Normally, he’d thank her for her nobility, but he’s got only a few seconds before Morgana crashes their conversation.

“Great, you should really meet our cartographer; I’m sure you two will get along famously. I’ll see you later!” He dashes away as fast as he can without looking too conspicuous, and hopes that Morgana doesn’t kill Mila on the spot.

 

* * *

 

The absolute _nerve_ of this bitch. What the hell was she thinking when she talked to the Captain like that? If Captain Darious hadn’t let her onto the crew, she would’ve already jammed her sword up her--

“Hey, can I help you? I’m sorry if I pissed you off earlier…” God, this damn cat was grating on her nerves harder than Leeko did on a bad _week_.

Morgana grabs Mila by her collar, and holds her up to her face, making sure that she can hear every word she’s about to say.

“Listen up, the only reason I haven’t killed you yet is because Captain Darious has got it in his head that you should be on the crew. Let’s get one thing straight - we Dread Pirates respect the chain of command. You don’t talk to the Captain like that, and you won’t ever talk like that to me, the goddamn _first mate_. That means that unless the Captain says otherwise, you follow my orders.”

The cat at least has the sense to be scared of her, although even _that_  might not keep Morgana from murdering her.

“Darious has such a soft heart, but you’ll get no mercy from me. You may have convinced the Captain, but you haven’t convinced me. Do anything suspicious, and you’ll be walking the plank before you can beg for mercy, got it?” She draws out her last words, dragging her in closer, just to make sure she really get sit.

The cat doesn’t say anything for a while, so Morgana takes that as a ‘yes’ before letting go of her and dropping her on the deck. As she’s leaving to her own quarters, she sees Mila with a small _dumbass_ smile that's probably genuine, despite how much Morgana wants to use the moment to punch her in the face. Even though it definitely isn't normal, it's sure as hell not a reason to kill her, especially with the Captain's orders. Besides, there's plenty of crazies out on the seas, anyway.

What a goddamn bitch.

 

* * *

 

After she sees Morgana leave, Mila leans against the mast and raises her hand to her chest, her heart beating a mile a minute.

“I can’t believe I forgot that Darious hadn't told me his name…"

She takes a moment to recompose herself, straightening out her clothes, and wiping the sweat off her hands.

"...and I shouldn't have brought up Indigo's name either..."

Doing a quick stretch to the side to relieve some tension, she takes a deep breath to steady herself.

"...Morgana’s still the same as ever. Maybe this one will really be it.”

She flashes one last smile for her own sake towards the water, and heads down underneath the deck to go find Leeko. Wait, no, the  _cartographer_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Revised 5/19/2019


	2. Courage isn't Bravery

So, so, so, this was the person that he saved that night? From what he had heard updeck, apparently she was a new recruit too. She didn’t look like she could be a pirate, but then again, he didn’t look the part either. Maybe it’s finally a kindred merchant, coerced to join the crew and ready to sympathize with him? That’d be a nice change.

“Oh, hi there! I’m Leeko. They told you I was a cartographer, right?” Frankly, at this point, he’d be surprised if Darious _hadn’t_ told her that he was the cartographer, even though he really is just a tool for the crew.

She gives him a strange look. “Darious told me that there was _a_ cartographer on board. I assume that’s you, but at first, I thought you were the ship’s business dealer.”

Huh, Darious didn’t mention his name at all? That was new… and honestly pretty depressing. Leeko guessed that at some point, even Darious couldn’t hold the ploy to keep him happy forever.

“Of course. Well, you’re not too far off the mark. I used to be a merchant, just like you, before I was brought aboard this ship. I’m not good at much except reading a map, so they say that I’m a cartographer. Like it’s some fancy title…”

Before he can get to his main point, Mila (he thinks that’s her name) interrupts him.

“They don’t let you handle business expenses? It seems like you’d be good at that.” She tries to gives him a smile, though Leeko thinks that it’s a little too forced.

“Ah, they don’t trust me with stuff like that. I mean, I sure wouldn’t.” She drops her smile, as if she’s genuinely concerned about him, which is a pretty good sign that she’s a liar considering that they just met. Nevertheless, he should probably move on. “So I’m assuming that Darious told you what we’re all about. What do you think about all this? The treasure, and everything - that’s why you’re here, right?”

At least, it’s why he’s here.

( _No it isn’t_ , his conscience tells him. _He’s just too scared to leave._ )

“I’m here because the Captain saved my life. I should at least repay him a little bit.” Leeko opens his mouth to point out that she really doesn’t have to, but-- “And, well, I have nowhere else to go.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” she says. “Oh.”

...Well, this was awkward. At least she doesn’t seem to be too depressed over it. In fact, if he squinted, she looks a little excited to be here, which would make it hard to watch when she realizes that the Dread Pirates _are actually_ pirates, so Leeko decides to stop that here and now. There's no reason to play up her hopes only to bring it down so soon after she's joined.

“Look, Darious may want us to pretend that we aren’t real pirates, but let’s be honest. We’re all out here on our own. We’re hunting something rare and dangerous. Aside from Darious calling our little treasure hunt a noble mission, what’s the difference between us and pirates? Right?”

Mila tilts her head at him. “So what if we’re actual pirates?”

That hits him _hard_. He’d been gearing up witty responses if she’d agree with him, or if she didn’t believe him, but he hadn’t been prepared for that question, which leaves him blubbering out something to shoot back.

“We-well, pirates kill, rob, and steal, y’know? Besides, all pirates all backstab each other in the end anyways, so being in a crew of them is bound to get yourself hurt, if not killed.”

Mila grimaces at his words, but looks him back straight in the eyes and says, “So, would you eventually betray Darious and Morgana and one day stab them in the back?”

And, well-- he can see how she got to that conclusion. The reasoning makes sense from an outside perspective, and would’ve derailed his entire train of thought. But…

“I’ve never been part of the crew.”

She looks at him both quizzically and piteously, which he really doesn't need at the moment. She's just like Darious, always trying to make him feel better about his undeniable patheticness.

“You doubt me?” Leeko ends up saying, after the lull in conversation.

“That’s not wh--”

“It’s fine. Like I said, I’d doubt--”

“That’s not what I meant!” Mila yells. She looks guilty now, but there’s nothing to feel guilty for, so it’s a wasted thought. “I was just trying to say that pirates don’t necessarily have to be backstabbers, and what do you mean you’re not par--”

(and Leeko can’t take anymore of this, it can’t be true, or else he’s a total failure)

“Listen, I don’t trust anyone. Everyone has an agenda. Everyone has secrets. And I’m guessing you’re no exception…”

Silence pervades the room. Mila stands there, ready to burst, but she keeps her mouth shut. It’s rather odd for him, not having to argue with someone after he’s made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t trust her.

“An-anyway, I’ve rambled long enough. Let’s talk treasure hunting.” She looks like she wants to speak up again, maybe to apologize or to prove him wrong, but she stays quiet.  “Darious told you about the coins, right?”

“...Kind of. He told me that they could change the world, but when I asked him, he said that he would tell me later.”

“Typical! Well, you didn’t miss much. It’s a load of superstitious mumbo-jumbo if you ask me. I say it’s valuable because it’s gold. Let’s just leave it at that.”

“...What’s the point in going after these coins then? From what I’ve heard of the Dread Pirates, they always went after rare and possibly magical artifacts; that’s why our merchant guild was so excited to meet you guys.”

She’s heard of them before? That was surprising, considering how _he_ came to hear of them, but  the reputation of the Dread Pirates had to be spread somehow; he’ll have to ask her later.

“Darious said he’ll tell you later, yeah? Then he’ll tell you later. I don’t even get it myself, but I’m here anyways.”

“...Okay. If that’s the case, then do you know where the treasure is supposed to be?”

Geeze, this girl asked a _lot_ of questions! Now he could see why Darious had taken a shine to her ( _and not him_ ). “I’m supposed to be the cartographer, remember? If I had a map prepared, do you think I’d be treated so poorly?” Leeko spots another wince from Mila, but tries his best to ignore it. “All I know is that there’s this cave, near the Cursed Coast. No idea how to get there, or what’s really inside.”

She steadily nods and waits for him to go on.

Wait, that’s it? He just told her, another merchant soon-to-be pirate, that they’re exploring a cave near the freaking _Cursed Coast_ , and her only response is to nod and move on? What kind of person was Mila, for her to not even be a little fazed by that? 

Leeko lets out an audible sigh in the moment. Why was she so... ( _different than him?)_

“It’s supposed to be a really dangerous trip, so we’ve got to get the coordinates exactly right before we sail. That’s why we’ve been focused on what Darious calls… ‘reconnaissance’.”

“Okay, what does that mean?”

“Oh, you’ll find out soon enough.”

 

* * *

 

They were sailing for a while now, heading to the nearest tavern for reconnaissance as per the Captain’s orders, but something just ticked at Morgana more than usual. Sure, she could just attribute it to the cat’s sudden appearance in their crew (she was pissed as all hell when Leeko was introduced), but there’s something about her that tips her off. The random-as-hell smile was part of it, like she was in on a joke or some crap, but her only experience with merchants was Leeko, and he wasn’t a great example, so Morgana could probably write that off as just a merchant thing.

It wasn’t only the smile either. She’d somehow known their names before they introduced themselves, although maybe they had mentioned each other’s names a couple times during the conversation, and the explanation she gave to them was suspicious, but Morgana couldn’t pick out exactly what was wrong with it. Her tone when she spoke was strange, especially considering that she acted calm the entire interrogation even when Morgana was literally in her face about it, but she’d seen stranger things from Captain Darious, so it isn’t her place to judge.

So, instead of overthinking the problems she has with the new recruit, she does what she normally does when someone’s story is shifty: threaten to send them swimming with their limbs cut off if they don’t talk.

Morgana barges into the room, not bothering with the whole knocking equals respect crap that Darious had drilled into her, and finds Mila sitting on the bed, who blankly looks up at her when the door slams. They make eye contact (god, she hated that blank stare) for a moment, which makes Morgana momentarily forget what she’s about to say.

“Did you need something, ma’am?” the cat says.

“What I need are answers.” There’s a slew of questions that come to her mind, but the first one is--

“Why are you so goddamn weird?”

“...I’m not sure I can answer that appropriately, ma’am.”

Shaking her head to readjust herself, Morgana growls. “First of all, don’t call me ma’am. It’s weird. Second of all, I’m asking why the hell you say things like ‘ma’am’ to normal people, and why the hell you ask questions like ‘why would you want to change the world’ to normal people.”

The cat thinks for a moment. “What do you want me to call you, then?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, just say Morgana! And explain why you do things like that already!” Oh god, she’s going to blow a gasket if this keeps up.

The cat folds her legs in, picking her feet up off the floor. Apparently, this was going to be a long story.  “As a merchant, you learn to ask questions to get info on people so you get a better deal. If you’re good at it, people like it when you push the right buttons.”

“You push buttons around here, you’re going to get killed.”

The cat nods, like she knows something that Morgana doesn’t. To be honest, she kind of liked her no-bullshit attitude because it was about damn time there was another spine on the boat, but the haughtiness and hedonistic confidence reminds her of Rourkie, and anything resembling that rabbit fucker deserved to have their throat slit.

“I’ve started to notice that. Anyways, at some point during a spice export, I met some people who got me roped up in a… prank scheme. They liked me, for some reason, but once everything was all said and done, they told me that I was going on a trip with them.”

Morgana raised her eyebrows. “Okay, so what does this have to do with anything?”

The cat sighed, and for the first time, Morgana saw what the Captain was talking about when he said that the cat looked haunted. The way her body heaved, her shoulders brought up and drooped, her exaggerated eye bags, was all more akin to a town drunkard who had gotten shit-faced twice over at a underground tavern than a merchant who’s probably never had to deal with half the stuff that she’s personally been through, so why the hell did she look like she just suddenly became twice Morgana’s age and three times as experienced?

She’s brought back to the conversation when the cat starts talking again. “I had to ask them a lot of rhetorical and non-rhetorical questions to get off the trip, and even then, it looked like they were sad to see me go, despite having laying out exactly why they shouldn’t bring me on the trip. After that, I guess it became force of habit, to ask weird questions when I’m uncomfortable with someone. That might be why I asked Captain Darious that. I was probably just panicking too hard in the moment.”

Morgana couldn’t really relate at all, being uncomfortable made her want to punch someone, but once again, she’d heard of weirder (hell, she’d _done_ weirder) coping mechanisms, and the story sounded true enough; there were enough crazies in the world for it to happen. Also, it’s probably good to know that tidbit of information, just in case the cat starts saying something stupid when she fucks up and reveals that she’s a spy or something.

So why does she still feel like the cat’s hiding something else?

“Alright, sure, fine. But there’s still one more thing.” The smile is still bugging her, so she asks, “What the hell was that dumbass smirk today?”

The cat flinches. Like, she actually recoils back a bit before she schools her expression into something resembling her resting bitch face. So, there’s something there, and _like hell_ if she isn’t going to find it.

“Well, I’m not going to deny it, but there really isn’t anything to it.”

“Really nothing to it, huh? Then why don’t you try explaining it to me, so that everyone can understand?”

The cat flops backwards onto the bed, and before Morgana can yell at her for disrespecting the first mate, she hears a murmur that stops her.

“...I just wanted to not feel like shit for a while.”

The curse throws her off immediately, but processing the rest of the sentence freezes her. She doesn’t entirely believe that Mila means it, but it doesn’t sound like a complete lie either. Mila keeps going before she can recover.

“Everything sucks. I just lost people who were practically my family, and now I’m jumping into a new life of treasure hunting. It’s just... you reminded me of someone from my group, and I forgot for a moment that they were dead...” Shit. Morgana knows Mila’s tone, and she didn’t like where this was going.

“This … maybe I should’ve just died along with the rest of them…”

“Don’t fucking say that.”

It felt like her own voice, back when Darious had taken her under his wing. It was awful, living with a stranger who had no reason not to kill you and being away from the only family that she had ever known. She definitely came close to _that_ , but Darious stopped her every time, even when he nearly got himself killed a couple times.

“What?” Mila is turned on her side, looking at Morgana with wide eyes. Her posture looks nothing like the hardass bitch she saw in the storage room. Her hands nearly cover her face, her legs are tucked in, and if she looks closely enough, she can see her entire body shaking. Vulnerable, completely open to attack right now, and it was the same position that Morgana had showed to Darious at one point. Mila was desperate for an out, and Morgana didn’t know what she needed an out from, but there was no faking this.

_Mila is like her._

Unfortunately, she wasn’t done recovering from Rourkie’s treatment ( _abuse)_ of her, so there is no way that Morgana knows any way to help her without possibly fucking up, and besides, Mila isn’t completely trustworthy just because she’d exposed herself to Morgana, so she has to take extra precautions in these types of situations. She didn’t trust herself to make the right call here; this is more Darious’s forte, if anything.

Still though, she could do something, right?

As she starts to walk out the room, she looks back at Mila’s hopeful expression and tells her, “Your earrings are nice,” before closing the door.

She hears a faint _yours too_ , fairly soon after she leaves. So, she gets up to the deck, and prepares for reconnaissance.

 


	3. Peeling the Scabs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi there, I'm glad that you're interested enough to read this far! For future reference, this story will not take the "Prisoner of Destiny" DLC into account, so that path does not exist in this Alternate Universe.  
> Otherwise, be on the lookout for future chapters, and please leave a comment if you can!

Darious steps into the tavern with hope brewing in his heart. He could feel it -- they were close to getting the location of the coin, and this tavern was known for its local gossip. They had to find something here, or they’d be stuck for a long time before they could get sailing again. Of course, this was the 13th tavern they’d been to that day, but that was to be expected; if anyone knew where the treasure was, then being treasure hunters would’ve been much less thrilling.

If they didn’t find anything at this tavern, they’d go back to the ship for the night and start looking again the next day. He really didn’t want to go in blind, because who knows why the coins were scattered in the first place, but the lack of information is starting to break his patience. They’d spent so long getting the last coin, and even then, it was only one coin. At this rate, they might as well quit now and start looking for something else, but he’s feeling optimistic today, so he doesn’t let that bog him down.

However, that’s not the only thing that’s on his mind. He glances to his left to see Mila and Leeko chatting about something, he really couldn’t hear what was going on, but every now and then Mila would laugh or snicker at something Leeko said, and Leeko would punctuate his words with his hands, raising them to the sky, and was generally much more loud and amiable than he had seen him in the past. He’s surprised to see that they’re getting along so well; Leeko was not the kind of man who made friends on his own.

In addition, he had caught Morgana leaving Mila’s quarters with a considerably softer expression than she’d seemed capable of with a stranger. Hell, he barely got to see that side of Morgana himself, and that was only when he started to help her with the nightmares. Plus, it was a far cry from how she’d treated Mila that morning, which was completely reasonable due the fact that he was adding a random merchant to the crew, _and_ that Morgana really wasn’t a people-person in the first place.

So, Darious has almost too many questions about their newest recruit. For starters, how did she get Leeko and Morgana on her side so quickly? He hadn’t personally interacted with her since their talk on the boat, but from how she acted in the various places that the crew had gone to, she had adopted a friendly demeanor that Darious would have never expected from the morning’s transgression. It left him puzzled, at the least.

In fact, he had been somewhat horrified to see her flirt with a customer at the last tavern, only to leave him abruptly when Darious motioned her over, and she had told him, “I didn’t learn much from that guy, except that the cave is rumored to be a labyrinth.”

What the hell happened in the time between their first encounter and now?

As he stops near the border of the door, Mila asks, “Um, Captain? Are we stopping here for right now?” He can already see Leeko’s disappointment at the pause in conversation and the next intel-gathering mission, but they have to do what they have to do.

“Yes, I’m confident that somebody here knows the location of the treasure. Make sure that this stays on the down low. The last thing we want is a crew learning about this treasure and creating competition. Is that clear?”

The crew all nods, although Leeko does so a bit exasperatedly, but he knows that they’ll heed his warning. He also doesn’t want a repeat case of what happened at the last tavern, (Mila’s flirting was one thing, but he really didn’t need to see Morgana trying to force Leeko to participate in strip poker), so he says “All of you, just act naturally this time. See what you can find, but stay out of trouble.”

This time, he’s not too sure if any of them listen to him, Darious included.

 

* * *

 

 Leeko thinks that this tavern crawl is going much better than any of the ones before they were looking for the coins. Okay, maybe that last tavern experience got way out of hand, but overall? He was having a fantastic time. Mila is one of his favorite people, he decides, when she snickers at one of his corniest jokes. He’d gotten a shove from Morgana after that one, but it’d been worth it to finally feel like someone understood him.

(It distracted him from the fact that Mila is undoubtedly more capable than him, and it hurt a little less when he saw Darious give an approving nod towards Mila after she had apparently made a breakthrough)

Of course, their morning talk is still fresh in his mind. He still doesn’t trust Mila, but he’d naturally gravitated towards her due to a lack of anyone else to talk to, The constant conversation helps to keep his suspicion at bay, and it doesn’t hurt that Leeko did most of the speaking; he talked, and Mila listened.  He can’t remember the last time that talking with someone wasn’t so stressful or complicated.

(He can’t remember the last time someone _listened._ )

So when they get to another tavern before they give up for the day, he’s in relatively good spirits. He’ll have to leave eventually so that he and Mila can actually be somewhat useful, but he more-or-less drags Mila to the bar after Darious gives them their thirteenth pep talk so he can finish the story he was telling her.

“So, after we saw that crazy guy walk out of the ship, Darious told me to find the nearest island, just so that we could find somewhere to bury the bag and never look at it again!”

He also decides, in that moment, that Mila had a pretty laugh.

After she takes a couple of breaths and tries to maintain a straight face, she loses it again, and Leeko is right beside her, laughing along. He sees Morgana glare at them from the poker table, so he knows to move it along, but he has some time left for some casual banter, right?

“So, hey, Mila?” She still has a big smile on her face and couple chuckles leak out, but she tries to focus on him. “So, uh, how are you enjoying your first aimless tavern crawl…” and he pretends to look sheepish for a second before saying, “Sorry, I meant, ‘highly productive reconnaissance mission?’”

She does the thing where she tilts her head with a concerned expression and says, “We have been getting at least a little bit of information. Do you really think that we’ve just been wandering around, hoping to hear stuff?”

He’s not sure how to respond to that, so he falls back on skepticism and doubt.

“Well, how many taverns has it been? Thirteen, now?”

He must’ve still been buzzed from the rum from earlier, because he could swear that Mila’s face drops in horror like she hadn’t realized, but it’s quickly put back into her half-happy expression.

“Yeah, I guess… haven’t found any major clues yet?”

“Me? Not a one.” (He’s briefly reminded that Mila has found some stuff , but it hurts too much to think about, so he pushes the thought away.) “The best you can say about this is, I suppose it’s better than pointless battles on the high seas, right?”

“Yeah, I guess…” Mila’s looking down at her feet, hands fidgeting at her sides, and overall looks supremely uncomfortable. Leeko doesn’t know what he said to make her dejected, but hey, he had a good run with someone for once. It was probably Fate’s way of saying that he should skedaddle and at least try to do some work, so he starts to edge his way out of the conversation.

“Anyway, we should probably get to it, huh? I won’t be much help to you or anyone else in the crew, so you can do whatever you want.”

Mila snaps up at him, and he already knows what she’s about to say, so he backtracks and says, “I know what I can’t do. I can’t even bribe people for information, or get a drink here because I already lost all my money at cards. Morgana’s the one who’s good at that; I haven’t won all night.” Then, mostly as an aside to himself, “...I wish just once I could win.”

If Mila hears him, she doesn’t show it, but she gives him a half-smile. “So, gambling isn’t your thing. Why not try-”

“Listen, I...kinda want to be left alone right now,” he says, because this is entirely too much for him. “Don’t worry about me, Morgana’s over there at the table. Maybe you can help her to get that guy to talk?” He takes the moment to push himself out of the stool at the bar, hops out, and begins to make his way towards one of the empty tables to do some ‘surveillance’.

Because of this, he doesn’t see Mila fiddling with her necklace.

 

* * *

 

Morgana had this guy on the ropes, and both of them knew it. She pressures him to place another bet, this time either for 100 gold pieces or elusive information on the Cursed Coast. As they both draw, he tries to hide his delight at his hand, but Morgana spots it in no time, and is already reaching into her boot.

She distantly notices Mila coming over, but she had a job to do.

“Four Dukes! How’s that for a poker face?”

She merely smirks, and slaps the hand down on the table. “Four Emperors! Guess I got lucky again…”

The guy gapes at the cards, and fumed at her. “What!? You’re kidding, again? Nobody’s got luck that good.” He points at Mila. “You there -- you saw her! She’s cheating, right?” Oh, come on, couldn’t this guy learn to know when he’d been screwed over?

Mila, for her credit, plays it better than she probably could’ve. She scrunches her eyes, tilts her head, and tells him, “What are you talking about? It’s not like she pulled out any extra cards, and I would’ve seen her if she did, considering that I was standing right next to her.”

Morgana follows up on that, albeit after some time for the words to sink in, and puts on the biggest shit-eating grin that she can muster. “You lost, so why don’t you tell me where the cave is, and maybe I’ll let you keep your coins?” She phrases it as a question, but she hopes that the play-nice act gets him to talk.

“I don’t know where it is, I swear! You’d think I’d be sitting here if I did?”

She gives him a sneer, and she even shoos him away with her hand for good measure. “Then pay up and scram.” The fatso goes white at this, and Morgana gets a pretty good idea at what’s about to happen.

“...Actually, I don’t have enough coin to cover it…”

She’s already standing up to intimidate the hell out of him, but Mila beats her to the punch and pokes the guy in the side.

He looks up at her, startled, and Mila absolutely plays the guy like a fiddle. “Here, I’ll help you cover it, just this one time. How much do you owe her?”

Morgana’s left gawking for a second, but she ends up playing along with Mila, sending the guy a couple of glares before he turns around and starts counting out money. By the time they’ve ponied up all the cash, Morgana’s leaning back on her chair, feet on the table, if only to rub it in a little more. The guy pretty much runs out the door, and Morgana and Mila sit awkwardly at the table, long enough to make it weird if she didn’t say something soon.

“That was pretty slick, Mila. We’ll have to do that more often.” She hands Mila her money back, but she looks confused as she reaches out and takes it. God, this bitch didn’t think that she was that cruel, did she?

Apparently, Mila reads her and speaks first. “Oh, I was just assuming that since Darious gave me the money to gamble with, you were going to keep it. It’s not like I have much use for it right now, anyway.”

Morgana’s pretty sure that no one sane would think about it like that, but she’s not going to complain about squeezing more money out of a guy. “Nah, I'll collect it later. You find anything?”

She shakes her head and folds her arms. “To be honest, I haven’t really been looking so hard yet. That being said, I’m pretty sure that none of the patrons here know anything, considering that the only sailor here was the guy we just scammed.”

Well, that’s not great, but not totally unexpected. The place is probably one of the emptiest taverns she’s been in, so there aren’t much people in here in the first place, much less reputable customers.

Darious comes over, and says, “Well, my efforts have proved fruitless...not even a whisper about the cave..”

“That makes three of us. How much time are we going to waste here?” Honestly, she hated these reconnaissance missions that Darious had them go on, if only for the fact that it was a crapshoot every time.

“I just discovered there’s a small dining terrace out back. It shouldn’t take too long for you and I to comb through it. Then we’ll head out.”

Morgana groans. “Fine, let’s get this over with.”

As she follows Darious outside, she’s reminded that the place looks terrible. Darious starts talking with some of the diners, so she walks around aimlessly, because people were his thing; she’s there just in case she needs to knock some heads around. That’s how they’ve always worked, but no one has threatened him for a pretty long time.

At some point while she’s kicking a pebble on the ground, Darious comes back to pick her up, and they head back inside to get the others.

Everything stops when she sees Rourkie.

Morgana’s first reaction is to run away, but that would be useless, so instead she picks up the nearest chair, and goes in swinging.

“ _ROURKIE!”_

She breaks the chair on Brouck's head, splinters of wood flying around them. He staggers back and almost falls over, while Morgana, in one swift motion, has her sword at Rourkie's face. She doesn't know what stops her from shoving it in.

“I was hoping the next time I saw your ugly face, it would be at the end of a hangman’s noose! But to see you, of all people, taking a kid!?”

“Morgy, Morgy, Mor-”

“Don’t fucking call me that!” She didn’t know when his voice would stop haunting her and appearing in her worst nightmares, but the nickname isn’t helping matters.

The asshole smirks at her, and she can feel her arms shaking as he stares at her. “Oh, it’s been so long!”, he says in his natural condescending-as-hell tone. He looks down, putting on a facade like he actually had humanity (Before, Morgana would have believed it), and throws his hands up in the air, shaking his head. “Silly me, I thought you cared about that boy in the attic… You really think he’ll be fine if you harm me?”

She barely notices that Darious is at her side when he speaks up, but she can’t even hear him when he talks. She’s too busy trying not to fall apart.

She becomes momentarily aware of what the hell’s going on when Rourkie addresses her again by that _fucking name._

“...Morgy? I’m sure the old me would have simply burned this place to the ground if someone was holding out on me…” Rourkie looks around, and for a second, she swears that she’s part of his crew again, seeing him look around before motioning for them to blow the place apart. It still seems... normal, even almost a comfortable constant in her life.

She pushes the thought away before it can eat her alive.

“We’ve got an interesting crowd here… Tell me, Morgy, what do you think their roasting flesh would smell like?” As if a couple civilian deaths would stop her from killing him on the spot, there would be _lives saved_ in the end, but Darious puts his hand on her, which finally tethers her fully back to reality.

“Clock’s ticking, Rourkie. Either you do exactly as I said, or I’m sure Morgana would be happy to end you.”

Rourkie’s face wretches. “You...insolent…” He visibly realizes that Morgana still has her sword reasonably within instant death distance, and he somehow molds his face back into the goddamn smirk. “I guess have to pay for my sins, don’t I? Here you go, Abby.” She just notices that Rourkie has a bag presumably filled with gold in his hands, and he reaches out to throw it at someone behind her. “Don’t spend it all in one place.”

Darious doesn’t relax for a second before saying, “Now, leave and take your goons with you. Leave the boy unharmed.”

“How...convenient for Abby that you lot happened to show up. I’d heard rumors that she had some kind of valuable information. I dismissed them out of hand, of course. How could someone like her know anything?” He points at Darious with the confidence that he’s always had when he decided that he was too good for other people. “But Darious, seeing you here… It’s always taken more than money to interest you, hasn’t it?”

Morgana feels her blood go stone cold, and she’s pretty sure that Darious steps back a bit before gripping her shoulder with more force than she could’ve imagined.

The rabbit-fucker’s still talking, but she doesn’t let herself breathe until he’s almost out of the door. And then…

“See you soon, Morgy.”

 

* * *

 

Mila wishes that she’d just stolen a gun from the ship’s storage room. She could’ve ended it right here, but she’d taken too much time re-stabilizing herself. She’d forgotten to do it, like she always did.

She wonders what would’ve happened if she had shot Rourkie. It’s a nice, if ultimately self-degrading, thought.

As they talk with Abigail again about the whereabouts of the treasure, Mila checks one last time that her new coin is in place. She only has this one chance, after all.


	4. Into the Mind of a Traveler

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for being inactive for literally 3-4 months! I can't make any promises (school is kicking my ass), but hopefully I'll try to post at least once every month, if not biweekly. I'm determined to see this fic through, so please be patient with me! Feel free to let me know what you expect, and I might or might not follow up on that! By the way, do you prefer the old title or the new title? Enjoy the chapter!

The innkeeper (Abby, wasn’t it?) was putting up a good fight against giving them the map, but once Darious had told her about Rourkie’s ‘tendencies’, for lack of a better term, she relented pretty quickly. Nevertheless, he couldn’t shake the feeling like he was cheating her somehow in his own interest for the map. Logically, he knows that his plan would protect the innkeeper and her son, but it feels like he’s manipulating her.

Besides that, he’d never imagine that Rourkie and his crew would be here. Rourkie definitely knows something, so it’s safer to assume that they’re already looking for the coins as well. Either that, or he’s just plotting to screw the _Dread Pirates_ over, which Darious wouldn’t put it past him. It looks like there would be competition for the coins after all; he just hopes that it doesn’t come down to a bloody confrontation.

“Alright, take the map,” the innkeeper says. She looks a little relieved, but her hands are shaking holding the map, and her eyes dart back and forth a few times before extending the roll of parchment to Darious.

Darious nods in response. “Thank you.” He turns to his crew, standing in a loose half-circle behind him, all with varying expressions of shock, general uncomfortableness, and one of Mila’s intense stares. If he has any luck, that last one wouldn’t become a regular occurence. “There’s no time to waste. Let’s go.”

Just as the innkeeper heads for the stairs, Mila speaks up. “Hey, will she really be safe for tonight?” Then, more shyly, “I mean, I don’t know this Rourkie character as well as you probably do, but, uh, I got the impression that he likes to visit his clients often. And, after what just happened… I’d wager that he might drop in.” The innkeeper whirls around with a horrified look, and Darious can already see the first signs of a breakdown.

“Well,” he says, “...that does seem rather true to his past behavior.” The innkeeper is ready to faint, but before he can say anything else, Mila steadies her and keeps her from collasping.

“So...I _should_ have already been on the run?” The innkeeper is hyperventilating now, knuckles white where she grips the cup that she’s holding, and it looks as if Mila’s doing all that she can to keep her standing.

Darious decides it would be better just to tell the truth on this one. “Unfortunately, you’re correct. Rourkie is ruthless with his ‘clients’, and we’ve seen that firsthand. My advice to you is to pack your bags immediately, and hide at a friend’s house or something of that nature.”

“Wait, Captain. Can’t we, er, let her onto the ship for the night?” Mila asks purposely, as if daring Darious to say no. He’s taken aback at her determination (although he wonders if he really should be, at this point.), but now that he’s thinking about it...

“What are you saying?! Let that fox chick and her son on board?!” Morgana snaps out of the reverie that she was in, although there’s _definitely_ some trepidation still there. “In case you’ve forgotten Mila, I'm your superior, and the Captain holds authority over us! You don’t get to make the decisions around here!”

“Morgana, that’s enough!” She immediately backs off Mila, who's already grimacing for speaking up. “Although I do appreciate your ideas, Mila, Morgana’s right. We have a chain of command for a reason." Neither of them looks any more reassured. "That being said, I see no reason not to offer her shelter for a night.”

The words sober up the innkeeper, and she stares at Darious. “Really?” she asks incredulously. “Would you do that for me and my son?”

“It was our mess that got you in this situation, so it’s our responsibility to help you.” Not necessarily completely true, considering that Rourkie apparently had a ‘rental fee’ on the inn, but that would be rude, and he still at least _feels_ responsible for her. “However, we will be charting a course for the treasure immediately, so it would take at least a couple of days before we can get back, as well as the fact that we’re heading into dangerous and unknown territory. The offer is open, but you are free to turn down if you feel that you feel that you and your son would be safer here.”

She winces when she hears that, but at least she doesn’t look as frantic by this point. When it’s apparent that a response isn’t going to come easily, Darious does a quick scan around the room in lieu of making conversation. Leeko is staring wide-eyed at the whole situation, and Morgana has her arms crossed, biting her lip and refusing to meet his eyes.

He would apologize for snapping at Morgana later, but honestly? The fact that Rourkie showed up makes him jittery, and he’s probably going to be paranoid over it on the trip. In fact, the only one who resembles being calm is unsurprisingly Mila, who looks lost in thought, if anything.

After a long silence, the innkeeper takes a deep breath and fervently looks up,.

“Please.”

 

* * *

 

 _The Pirate’s Fate_ was ready to go, after Abbigail and her lanky son shuffled onto the ship. They ended up deciding to put them in the supply deck, which wasn’t too far from the outside of the ship just in case they needed a way out. Mila had tried to sneak them extra blankets and pillows from her room, but Abbigail refused, saying that she’d already done enough.

Too bad for them. She knows from experience that she’s not going to be using them any time soon, and so Mila is already leaning on the railing of the ship when Darious comes out. She makes a point to only barely notice him, turning her head at the heavy footsteps, and right back out at the waves again. She almost thinks that she can get away with it too, but as always, Darious breaks the silence before it becomes awkward.

“I see slumber has proved elusive to you as well,” he says.

“Well, when you find out that your entire ship died, get subjugated into a pirate crew, and have to hide a widow and her son from a lunatic all in one day, it can be a little difficult.” She can _hear_ Darious’s sudden discomfort. The crew didn’t exactly know her yet, but it’s hard to remember that when she’s focusing on the one upcoming defining moment of her life, (well, lives technically). Mila spins around to face the Captain, and put on another smile. “Anyways, what can I do for you? Leeko said that we’re going to reach the Cursed Coast by dawn, so I’m not losing too much sleep.”

Darious chokes down a cough at her abrupt change. “Ye-yes, you’re correct.” He looks away for a moment, as if to avoid making eye contact. “That was quite a brash move in the inn, but certainly a warranted one. You have my apologies for not acting sooner. However, I do expect that, in the future, you listen to my orders first, and Morgana’s orders second.” She resists the urge to roll her eyes, and pretends to fidget in place, although she’s not sure if it looks convincing.

“I’m sorry for disrespecting you and Morgana, Captain.”

“It turned out fine in the end, Mila, so I’m not going to punish you. Just a reminder for the next sticky situation we might find ourselves in. Pushing that to the sides, would you like to join me in my quarters? I’ve yet to explain the tale of the coins to you, after all.”

She nods silently, and she follows him through the cavernous insides of the ship. It’s much more quiet, she realizes, when the only noises are the echoing footsteps and the bristling of their clothes. Once they’re inside the captain’s quarters, she feels herself relax a bit at the familiar sights.

The room is paradoxically cluttered and organized at the same time, random treasures scattered on the tables and counters. Some of the drawers lay open with a mismatch of artifacts, and she can see bits of jewelry and papers in various corners of the room. The bed is surprisingly made, though that doesn’t stop a very visible cutlass laying out from the foot of the bed. The room is dark, due to the windows only letting in the soft illuminations of the moon, and she has to rely on her relatively good night-vision to not trip when traversing the room.

Despite all of this, she knows where everything in the room is, on account of having been there so many times. The chaos even started to make some sense to her after a while, even if Darious apparently couldn’t be bothered to separate the wooden and flammable masks from the extremely hot looking boiler _on fire_ attached to the wooden and flammable wall. Seriously, what was that even doing here? It’s a miracle that the ship didn’t burn down, though she suspects there’s some magic mumbo-jumbo that Darious never told her before.

She’s broken out of her stupor when Darious cheekily says, “I see that you’re admiring the rewards of our exploits.”

“It’s not often that you see treasures from famous myths and legends all collected in a single room”, Mila shoots back snarkily, but flinches after the words comes out. Isn’t she supposed to be in complete awe or something at seeing this? Either way, she’s definitely being too suspicious, as she concludes by the raised eyebrows on Darious’s face in reaction to her aloof reply, so at this point, she’s going to roll with it. Mila crosses her arms, leans back against an unclaimed spot on the wall, and tries to do her best impression of an unimpressed Morgana. “So, the coins?”

Darious gapes at her, but she sticks it out until he sighs and collapses in the opulent red chair in the room, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees after slouching for a bit. “The coins come from the story of ‘The Most Wonderful Wizard’. Have you heard of it?” Mila mechanically shakes her head, and Darious nods. “Essentially, there was once a hound wizard who was rumored to have incredible power, and he wanted to heal the world from misery, despair, hunger, and the like. The coins were created by the wizard to channel his magic for this goal, but they were found by other people, who abused their powers for their own selfishness. Even so, the wizard believed that the coins would be found by those of pure hearts, and tirelessly worked on creating more of them. He scattered them over the world before his death, which is why we’re currently heading to this island.”

Of course, Mila knew most of this and then some already, but she nods in understanding. “So, do you know what the coins do?”

“No, I’m afraid not. Apparently, only the wizard knows how to truly use the coins. Those who allegedly abused their powers found out accidentally and only possessed a rudimentary knowledge of the coins’ magic,” Darious tells her with evident disappointment and leans back again while closing his eyes. “I have my own theories, of course, but nothing tangible about the actual magic.”

Mila is about to ask him about the whole “coins wanting to be found” nonsense when it hits her.

The crew doesn’t know what the coins did in the current time. But she _does_.

Indigo warned her not to reveal certain details, now that her memory isn’t being messed with, because the crew would start asking questions that she couldn’t explain without sounding insane, but damn it all if she didn’t need to keep them safe from the coins. Would it really hurt to at least drop a hint?

Having made her decision, Mila tentatively pushes off the wall and turns to face Darious. “I might know something about that.”

Immediately, Darious is on his feet, and his entire body snaps to face her back. His eyes are wide and boring into her as if he was trying to ferret the information out of her, and he stutters incomprehensibly in an attempt to speak.”W-w-w-wait, I-I, yo-you...what?” Darious becomes motionless, and Mila starts to feel a sinking feeling in her stomach.

“Well, uh, the thing about that is, uh…” Mila awkwardly trails off. What else was she supposed to do? Granted, Darious was always a devoted seeker of knowledge, but it really didn’t seem too provoking of a statement.

Fortunately, Darious relaxes a bit, although his eyes are still trained on her. “...Go on.”

“When I… bought this, the merchant told me that the message meant much more than it seemed.” She reaches to take out the coin in her necklace, but she reminds herself that she’d already replaced it at the tavern. “‘Become What You Seek’, right? He said that one would literally ‘become’ something that they sought.”

“But what does that exactly entail?”

She has to think carefully about how to word this. “I’m not sure if  any of these are true, but when I asked him about it, he said that people have grown fat due to their greed, develop wings or horns because of their bestial affinity, and even switch between the sexes on occasion.”

Darious is listening intently now, but the last quip seems like it nearly makes him faint. “Th-that’s…”

“Yeah, it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but…”

“No, no, I’m starting to get it!” A manic grin begins to set on his face. “Of course! ‘Become What You Seek’! It explains how the others would able to use the coins for their own purposes, and I’ve heard of magic being able to do that sort of thing, even if I would’ve never expected it. So the coins can really turn someone into what they want to be?” His hopeful tone makes her think that he _wants_ to use the coin, so Mila has to squash that notion as soon as she can.

“Er, I think that it only happens by accident, and it’s usually a bad thing. The merchant even warned me that the coins often transform people into what they want at the time, but it ends up ruining their lives in the long run…”

Darious looks a little saddened by that, but he visibly calms down while processing the knowledge. “So, where did you find this merchant who sold you the coin?”

Mila internally panics, but she keeps a smooth exterior as she answers him. She prepared for these questions back when she was with Indigo, after all. “Well, it was on a floating plaza. It’s actually a secret merchant location that only the most prestigious merchant guilds are given knowledge of, and even then it moves every year. I bought this 2 or 3 years ago, but I haven’t seen the merchant again since.”

“Oh, is that so…Well, that’s a better lead than anything else we’ve got after we collect these coins.” He straightens his back and cordially lowers his head to her. It’s a little off putting, for Darious to be doing that to Mila, considering what he’d been upset with her in the past (or future?), but he quickly lifts himself. “Thank you for telling me this, Mila. We’ll have to be more wary in the future when handling the coins, then. Is there anything else, anything at all, that might be useful?”

That was probably enough for now, but if she says that there isn’t anything else, she loses a way to subtly hand him more information in the future. On the other hand, if Mila does go on, she’ll either look like some prophet of the coins, or Darious will get skeptical of her knowledge after a while. She’ll just have to wing it.

“There is more stuff, but to be honest, I’m not sure if I trust you that much yet.” Darious instantly grimaces and frowns, but she’s already committed to this. “Look, we just met yesterday, and even though you saved me and I kind-of unofficially agreed to be part of your crew, I still don’t know who exactly you are. You’ve earned my respect, but you’re going to need to work for my faith in you.”

Suddenly, Morgana barges into the room, and when she sees Mila standing up and Darious looking distinctly uncomfortable, she gives her a suspicious look. “Captain, we’ve reached the Cursed Coast.”

He nods at Morgana, and Mila musters up the courage to directly look at him as he turns to her. “We’ll finish this talk later. However, I want you to know that I respect your decision, even if it does inconvenience us a bit. Let’s go.”

Darious gets up to leave the room, and Morgana follows suit shortly afterward, though not before shooting Mila another look.

Mila can already feel her heart thumping in anticipation. She didn’t feel prepared for this, but she’s going to get everyone out of the upcoming mess if it kills her, and if she has to cheat the coins? That’s a small price she was willing to pay.


	5. Deeper into the Rabbit Hole

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I've almost managed to stick to my schedule this time. However, even though I said I would be posting at least once every month, I have a bunch of school stuff coming up soon, and I might not be able to post much. I'll try my best, but I would rather spend more time getting the next chapter just right than trying to rush it out.
> 
> I really wanted to finish the Coastline Arc here, but I just needed to get this chapter out before I go crazy with studying and the like. Enjoy a long-ish chapter, and thanks for being patient with me!

Mila had searched the ship right after spotting the island, but there wasn't any guns and weapon that she could easily hide, and thus, she was forced to rely on the fact that Rourkie wouldn't be able to find Abbigail and extract the coin's location from her.

Of course, if he was smart, Rourkie would've been tailing _The_ _Pirate's Fate_ as soon as they left , but with the stormy weather and obscuring darkness, she couldn’t see much of anything before Darious approached her last night. She probably needs to get a spyglass at some point.

In any case, being unarmed in the semi-likely confrontation with Rourkie and his crew was the worst possible scenario, so Mila vows to find something before then. She does manage to find a small sack, which could always be useful, so she clips it to her skirt.

They had left Abbigail and her son in the ship, giving them explicit instructions to stay in the ship at all times as a precaution to something dangerous like, for instance, a pirate crew who wants you dead or a giant mythical beast, pops up on the island. Mila told them that, if for any reason they don’t make it back by the next day, they could assume that the crew died or were otherwise trapped. She didn’t really have a plan for them if they actually did all die, but Abbigail seemed obedient enough to not question it, so that was one less problem to worry about. 

They beach and dock the boat on an area clear of rocks, which unfortunately puts them at a considerable distance away from the cave that Mila points out to Darious. However, it’s the only way for the ship to safely pull in, so they have no other option other than to talk the long walk around.

The half hour walk isn’t especially arduous, but it’s dead silent, barring the natural sounds of the waves and wind. Mila is scared to start a conversation with anyone, as Morgana probably still distrusts her, Darious is processing her dodgy and rebellious actions from their previous talk, and Leeko looks oddly wary of her for some reason. The atmosphere generally tightens as they walk along the sand, but the icy tension breaks when they reach the cave.

“Wow, look at all those wrecks!” Leeko dazedly exclaims. Mila has to agree with that sentiment, although on closer inspection, some of the more decrepit ships have copious amounts of kelp and algae growing on the sides and a plethora of barnacles littered the hulls, showing their old ages.

“Yes, and _The Pirate’s Fate_ will join them if we waste too much time here. Even now, the tides are viciously moving back and forth. We need to hurry back soon,” Darious warns.

“That’s going to be a problem, Captain. We don’t know how far that cave goes down, and that’s besides trying to find the treasure,” Morgana jumps in.

“That’s true. Will we even come back alive? There could be anything in that cave!” Leeko shouts.

“What I _meant_ ,” Morgana rolls her eyes at Leeko, “was that someone should stay out here for the ship.”

Darious steps forward to catch their attention. “In that case, I’ll do it. After all, looking after the ship is a captain’s duty.” He stands up straight in a commanding manner. “Leeko, Mila -- Morgana will be your leader until we reconvene. Follow her orders as you would mine.” He looks pointedly at Mila as he says this, and she nods as assertively as she can.

Morgana, on the other hand, sneers at her and Leeko with a cutting grin. “Alright, maggots, you hear that?”  

“Wha-?”

“Yes, Morgana.” She cuts him off before Leeko can question it any farther, and after some prompting and subtle nudging, gets him to at least nod in affirmation.

‘Good. Let’s head in.”

As they enter the mouth of the crew, she turns back for a second to look at Darious. He meets her eye contact curiously, and Mila bores into him pleadingly, hoping that serves as enough as a warning. She just has a bad feeling about this.

 

* * *

 

The cave becomes progressively darker as they move on, and the ambient light from the surface starts to fade. It’s difficult to make anything in the dark, and the cave’s linear path is a blessing. The few forks in the path either lead to a dead end or deeper into the cave, so it’s hard to get lost. Even so, as Mila peeks over Leeko’s shoulder, the map that he’s making is little more than a bunch of random scribbles from what she can make out in the dark, but she doesn’t point it out to protect his fragile ego.

The awkward air from before returns, and the three of them stumble down the rocky trail while trying not to look at each other. Leeko, for some reason, is leading them, so Morgana and Mila are right beside each other. Mila, for her part, is doing her damn best to study the monotonous walls and anything else that isn’t Morgana before Leeko once again speaks up.

“So, Morgana, think the rumors are true? Think there’s a monster guarding the treasure?” he pipes.

Morgana snorts. “We’ll find out once we get there, right?”

“Well, let’s assume there is one. Don’t you have a plan of attack or something?”

“Yeah, I have a plan of attack. Attack.” she says bluntly. Leeko stops and spins around, giving her a sceptical look. She sighs and continues. “Look, we’ll make something up once we actually get there. For all we know, the monster doesn’t even exist, so quit worrying about stuff we can’t do anything about, Leeko.”

To Mila’s surprise, he seems to accept this, but not before muttering under his breath, “So much for being prepared…”

Morgana catches it though, and she yells, “I’m sorry, the Captain put who in charge again?! We don’t have time for this! The tides could’ve already destroyed the ship, along with those fox twats, and we wouldn’t even know, so keep moving!”  Her shouts reverberate and echo in the chamber-like cave, and Mila wonders if Darious can hear them down there. Actually, has Rourkie gotten him already?

Leeko lets out a squeak and turns around with a brisker pace than before. Mila elects not to say anything, mostly because she’s now too preoccupied thinking about what’s going on up there, but Morgana apparently sees something in her expression because the next thing she says is, “What, is that not good enough for you, bitch?!”

She quickly responds, “No, I didn’t say anything! I’m just worried about the Captain!”

Morgana pauses in her verbal assault of her. In a controlled tone, she says, “And what does that mean, cat?” Her voice has an edge to them, as if she’s daring Mila to make up some bullshit to protect herself. Truthfully, she _is_ pressured with trying to come with something on the spot to hint at Darious’s danger while at the same time not not sounding insane, so her glaring only amplifies her nervousness.

“I mean, uh,” she starts intelligently. “What if another crew or something appears while we’re down here, and Darious gets captured or something?”

Morgana stares at her incredulously. “First off, Darious’s smart enough to not get captured by another crew, so that’s out of the question.” Oh, she wants to laugh (or maybe cry) at the irony, but Morgana’s voice starts to raise again. “Second of all, do you know how fucking long it took us just to track this damn coin down? There are exactly zero other people who even know that the coins exist, so who the hell would even look here!?”

She answers indignantly,“The Cursed Coastline is infamous for a reason! People know there’s a treasure here, so who’s to say that there isn’t another crew like Rourkie’s or some--”

“Shut up.” The words cut through the room, leaving her sputtering for a moment. Morgana is trembling, and her fists are clenched so tightly that Mila can hear her leather glove creaking. Suddenly, the scene at the inn replays in her mind, and she remembers that Morgana was visibly more shaken than she’d ever seen her… and that was because of Rourkie, wasn’t it? Crap.

Mila unconsciously backs up against the wall, and Morgana imperiously towers over her in such a way that makes her height advantage that much more intimidating. “Don’t be stupid. The Captain can handle himself up there, so just shut your mouth until we get back, got it?” It’s all she can do to dumbly nod as Morgana corners her into a wall. She pushes past her with a huff and goes into the cave by herself.

Leeko, she notices, is frozen in place, completely agape, but she’s not doing much better. Her knees are about to give in, but manages to totter off the wall. “Come on,” she mumbles. “Let’s just go.”

For a second, she doesn’t think Leeko hears her, but together they manage to catch up with Morgana before she goes too far, and the rest of the trip is spent quietly.

 

* * *

 

Darious is left on the beach, leaning against a palm tree. There isn’t much to do, honestly, other than watch the ship bob gently up and down with the waves. Even though he had said that the tides might tear the ship to pieces, he couldn’t imagine it ever happening now that he’s been watching the ocean for over a hour. Maybe he should’ve gone along with them, but no, the ship was their home. Leaving it alone and in potential danger was like trying to buy and sell materials in a unknown bazaar; one could lose so much, but they’d never be able to tell until they got back.

He stifles a yawn, the remnants of the sleepless night coming back to haunt him. He had about 2 or 3 hours of time after Morgana notified him, but he had been too restless and disturbed from his talk with Mila. He’s glad that she had more knowledge about the coins; trying to decipher anything about them usually ended in failure and a headache, but he didn’t like the fact that Mila was very intently withholding information from him.

No, he tells himself. It isn’t fair to judge her for that, considering that she’s known them for less than forty eight hours and knows that the coins are extremely powerful. Adding on the fact that they were literally called the _Dread Pirates_ , and Mila’s actions were suddenly profoundly reasonable, although that didn’t make the entire situation any less frustrating.

He outwardly sighs, and rubs his temples. Maybe he should consider retiring after finding these coins.

As he lazily watches the clouds float by, his train of thought leads back to Mila again. What was that last look she gave him? It certainly didn’t feel hostile; it was more pitying and shy than anything else. In fact, it reminds him of Morgana, a bit, back when it was just him and her. She had been so brutal whenever they would interact with other people, but when it was just them alone, she would sometimes display a quieter and meek attitude.

Still, that doesn’t get him closer to figuring what in the blazes Mila wanted him to do. He doesn’t think that she would be scared of him, especially not with how she acted so brazenly in the cabin, but he can’t quite figure it out. He stands there drowsily, rolling his thoughts over in his head.

And before he knows it, there’s a gun pointed towards his head.

“Look what we have here, eh, Captain Darious?” a mocking, but familiar voice from behind him says. It’s chilling down to the bone, and he can feel the adrenaline start pumping through his veins.

Rourkie comes around him, and leans in. It probably doesn’t seem as terrifying as it should, mostly because Darious stands nearly a foot taller than he is, but being surrounded makes up for that. “Who would’ve thought, that the noble Captain of the acclaimed _Dread Pirates_ would’ve done something as _nefarious_ as lying about a treasure?” he says with a sly smirk.

Damn it, how the hell did they even get here?! Abbigail was with them, so he couldn’t have interrogated her at any time!

Rourkie can apparently read his thoughts as he’s frantically looking for a way out, because he says, “Do you really think I’m that daft to not notice that you were on after a certain prize? Why, I’m insulted.” He makes a show of putting his hand on his chest as if he was wounded, but the pretentious grin stays throughout the whole time. “If you must know, we were following you as soon as you left port. At some point, I realized you were after the Cursed Coastline, and it wasn’t hard to keep sailing in the same direction as you, wasn’t it?”

Darious barely suppresses a curse. If he’d known that Rourkie would be following him, he could’ve definitely shaken him off. He needs to be more careful next time, but right now, he doesn’t think there will _be_ a next time.

He averts his line of sight, and Rourkie tsks. “Mary, tie him up. We’ll kill him after we get the coin.”

“Of course, Rourkie.” His arms are slammed to his sides, and not before long, his body is binded.

He desperately tries to look for an out, but with a gun to his head, Rourkie and his crew surrounding him, and the rest of his crew still in the cave, the only thing he can do is to wait helplessly for a impossible miracle.

“You won’t get the coin, Rourkie. My crew knows better than to ever give it to people like you, and they wouldn’t hesitate to leave me for dead,” he barks at them.

That much is true, at least. Morgana would rather punch his face in, Leeko’s too submissive to not listen to his or Morgana’s orders, and Mila didn’t even trust _him_ enough to give him important information about the coins, so Rourkie was out of luck. He hopes.

Brock, the muscle of the three, speaks up. “Hey, you looking to die?” He drives the gun into his head, and the gun makes a soft _click_ sound. His head starts pounding, and it gets hard to not crumple to the ground.

Rourkie waves him off though. “Now, now, Brock. Poor little Darious here just wanted to get the final say, not that it matters.” He laughs raucously, and the other two awkwardly join in with pained chuckles.

After it dies down, he gets Brock to drag Darious closer to the mouth of the cave, and as he’s doing it, Rourkie starts monologuing to him, like the megalomaniac he is. “Morgy’s an old friend of mine, so who’s to say that she won’t come to her senses? And besides, once they get up here, they won’t have much of a choice anyway. That corgi of yours folds like wet paper, and although Morgy can be feisty, there’s three of us and only one of her, you know.”

Ignoring the fact that Rourkie was probably right about that last one, his curiosity gets the better of him, and he asks, “Have you forgotten about Mila?” in the most menacing tone he can manage.

“Oh, that cat? Why, I didn’t know you cared so much about her,” Rourkie taunts. “I’ll be sure to remember her, this time.”

Damn it, he should’ve just kept his mouth shut. However, Rourkie likes to flaunt people’s mistakes, so he says, “She’ll be eager to hand over the coin once she finds out the dangerous game you just lost. People always betray you. You would do well to remember that, Captain.”

He doesn’t have a response for that. Darious really didn’t want to believe that Mila would just hand over the coin, but so far, she’s subverted every single expectation he’s made of her.

He just doesn’t know anymore.

The one thing that Darious does knows is that he’s going to die here; there’s no doubt about it. He had gotten careless, and now, he’s paying the price. He only hopes that Morgana can survive after this mess and would take up his quest for the coins.

 

* * *

 

The group stays silent as they descend even further into the cave. The animosity between them is suffocating, but Mila can't afford to get punched out at the moment, so she leaves any attempts of reconciliation for later. She isn't particularly fearful of Morgana, but her nerves are completely shot thanks to a lack of sleep and stress.

“Hey, there's something down here!” Leeko shouts. He points towards a bend in the path, where Mila can just barely see a faint emanating light.

They all cautiously move towards the light, but a loud screeching “ _SKRAWK_!” gets Morgana to dive behind a split rock formations, and Mila and Leeko follow her.

“What is that thing?!” Morgana hisses in a harsh whisper. She edges towards the opening in the rock to get a better look. Mila almost feels stupid, hiding from a somewhat friendly gryphon, but she plays her part dutifully.

“I told you the rumors were true!” Leeko says.

“Not now, Leeko!” Morgana grunts behind her teeth. She leans in between the cracks and lets out a noise of something resembling surprise. “It's the coin! It's here!”

Sure enough, from what Mila could see, there's a glint of something shiny coming from a chest filled with other junk. She knows it’s the coin from experience, but she can’t help craning her neck to get a better look.

Leeko’s tightly gripping his load of maps, and he seems to be on the verge of ditching the coin entirely. “Okay, so now what?! Aren’t you going to attack it, or something?!”

“Leeko, shut up, I’m thinking!” Morgana says.

It’s almost amusing to watch the duo bicker, but she can’t afford to spend any more time with this. “Just calm down, guys. Not all creatures are inherently hostile, so if we approach it slowly…”

She gets up, hands raised in the air as if she’s surrendering, while Leeko and Morgana peer out from their respective sides. Leeko is worriedly looking about her, but Morgana just sighs and stands up straight with her shortsword raised in preparation.

The gryphon spots her, and she lets it come to her. It (probably was a he, now that Indigo pointed it out) stops directly in front of her, and she rubs the underside of its beak with practiced ease. Leeko gawks and squeaks from behind her, but she doesn’t let it stop her from giving the gryphon a few extra scritches around the neck as she reaches around. _Sorry_ , she thinks. _I’m going to need your help for a final time._

The gryphon watches her appraisingly, having evidently caught her message. It drifts away from her and starts to recede deeper into the cavern, but not before sniffing her. Its eyes widen, and Mila doesn’t know why until she remembers more about what Indigo had told her.

“Remember this gryphon from your travels? Well, did you know that it was once the spouse of that fox innkeeper?” he had perkily explained to her while she was idly fiddling with the pages of a book. He loved to drop random knowledge on her, and she took what she could get.

She slowly mouths “ _in the ship_ ”, and the gryphon appears to be satisfied by that. It turns away, and in the next moment, it’s gone.

“Okay, what on earth did you do!?” Leeko blurts out. Both of them have moved from their hiding places closer to her.

“Who cares?! The treasure’s right there!” She points towards the chest, as if it wasn’t the only thing in the room of importance.

Mila rolls her eyes and casually strides over to the chest, plucks the shiny coin out of the chest. There’s a bunch of other junk in the chest, which isn’t too conspicuous, except for the fact that there is somehow a random chest buried deep underground with a magical coin and some mundane frying pans. Maybe the wizard had some weird tastes?

Morgana is pumped up, but Leeko’s still concernedly eyeing her. Most people wouldn’t be able to handle a supposedly mythical beast so easily, but Mila isn’t most people, so she makes something up on the spot. “Oh, er, my merchant guild traveled a lot, so we met and saw a bunch of exotic animals before. You start to pick up on how to treat them, after a while.”

“I don’t give a damn what you did! Come on, I can’t wait to see the look on the Captain’s face when he sees the coin!” Morgana says smugly. She’s really excited about this, Mila notes. When she glances back at Leeko, he still looks a little skeptical, but otherwise apparently bought her explanation.

The mention of the Captain jars her though, and she’s reminded that she still doesn’t have a suitable weapon in the more than likely chance that Rourkie weaseled his way here. Mila quickly considers the chest, but there’s nothing in there that she can justify carrying out of the cave, even if she could hide it in her pouch at her waist.

As Leeko and Morgana start to make their way out of the room, Mila accidentally stubs her toe in the middle of her stress-induced panic, and she has to hold in a long string of expletives. Out of a desire to immediately destroy whatever caused her foot to have the stinging feeling of death, she looks around after hopping around on one foot and sees a pile of pebbles. An idea starts to form in her head as she takes her sack with the coin out.

“Oi, Mila! You coming, or not?!” Morgana yells across the cave.

“I’ll catch up! Just stubbed my toe on something and it hurts like hell!” she shouts back, while trying her best to discreetly and quietly scoop some of the bigger and heavier rocks into the pouch.

A minute later, and she’s collected enough to make a half-decent bludgeoning weapon, so she ties the sack up tight and hurries back to the others. It’s better than nothing, she supposes.

Morgana suspiciously greets her with her arms crossed. “Took you long enough, cat.” Mila doesn’t know when she became “cat”, but she’s not particularly inclined to correct her out of fear of getting her ass handed to her.

On the other hand, Leeko is shuffling an armload of maps around, pointing erratically at different spots on the outstretched parchment. “I think… this way is the way out.”

“We’ve already been that way for the tenth time!” Morgana berates.

“Then maybe… this way?” He looks up at the 3 different openings ahead, and gestures towards the middle.

“We didn’t have any trouble getting in. How stupid do you have to be to get lost heading out!?”

“Well, we’re not lost, per se…” He gathers all the maps and rolls them up, so that he’s carrying a bundle of papers again. “Here, just let me run ahead for now, okay?”

Morgana shrugs. “Be my guest. If you got us in, you’re going to get us out one way or another.”

Without hesitation, Leeko dashes off in front of them, which leaves her and Morgana standing alone together. Mila still isn’t sure if she pushed too far from last time, but apparently the euphoria and excitement from finding the coin hasn’t worn off yet.

“So, how was your first fight, rookie?” she playfully asks. Mila gives her a questioning look, and she sighs in defeat. “Okay, yes, I know that wasn’t exactly a fight, but your animal skills or whatever helped us get the coin. Darious doesn’t need to know the exact details.” She devilishly smirks to Mila, which is a relief.. Fortunately, their husk of a friendship wasn’t ruined yet.

She decides to humor her, if only to try to shake off her nerves. “I guess it was pretty exhilarating in the moment.”

“Kid, you have no idea.” Morgana excitedly shakes her head. “I still remember my first fight like it was yesterday. Just wait until you get to punch a bitch out, _then_ come and talk to me.”

“In that case, what happened in the fight? Who were you fighting?” Mila presses, even though she knows the answer already.

“Damn, curious much?” she laughs uproariously in the hollow cave. “Can’t blame you, though. I can already tell you’re a fighting bitch, with how you handled that beast.” _And how you stood up to me_ goes unspoken. Mila didn’t think that Morgana would respect her _more_ for being rebellious, but hey, she’ll take what she can get.

“Well if you must know,” she says teasingly, “I was kicking some condescending mutt’s ass after he decided that I didn’t belong on the ship, and I flipped that motherfucker overboard.” She chuckles again, as if she wasn’t talking about a time where she probably murdered someone out of spite.

Huh. Mila didn’t remember hearing about that before, although, that wording _does_ makes it sound like…

“Uh, you’re not talking about Darious, are you?” she hesitantly asks. She doesn’t exactly know how belligerent Morgana was when she first confronted Darious found her, but it’s somewhat worrying that she finds that story plausible.

“O-oh”, Morgana says stiffly. “No, I wasn’t… with Darious at the time.”

Mila tries her hardest to appear innocent and totally not uncomfortable with the subject matter, but either her acting skills need some work, or Morgana’s sharper than she thinks, because Morgana sighs and presses her lips together.

“Don’t pity me, cat. I’m not a delicate little _princess_ that has to be spoon fed and taken care of”, she scoffs. “Look, you remember the rabbit-fucker from the inn?”

Mila hastily nods. She really didn’t want to bring this up now, especially since Morgana never liked talking about it even when they had more intimate relationships in her adventures, but she was always going to end up having this conversation, whether it was on her terms or not.

She’s definitely not emotionally stable enough right now to handle this properly, though.

“I was with-- we were part of the same crew at one point in time,” Morgana begins wistfully. “We’re nothing alike, so don’t _ever_ compare me to him, but we did grow up together. Ever since we-- ever since _I_ was a kid, I’ve lived the pirate life on that ship. Thievery, killing, torturing, I’ve done it all.”

Mila notices that she doesn’t mention her relationship with Rourkie before she was kidnapped, or even that she _was_ kidnapped. It’s concerning, to say the least.

“I met Darious when our crew was after the same thing he wanted. When things went to shit, the rabbit-fucker left me for dead.” Morgana absently twirls the end of her hair with her finger, then flicks it away. “For some stupid reason, he let me live, and he ended up teaching me a lot of stuff about…life, I guess.”

Her eyes glaze over Mila. “Look, that’s why I was being such a bitch to you earlier. The Dread Pirates mean everything to me. Even that dumbass Leeko has his moments, sometimes. I can’t risk my family, my _life_ , on some random cat that appears out of nowhere.”

This...is not what she was expecting. An explanation, yes. An apology? She could count the number of times that Morgana sincerely apologized to her on one hand (to be fair, she’s not including the times she was turned into a goat or a princess).

But Morgana doesn’t stop talking. “I… understand, I guess, what you were trying to say about Darious back there.”

“What?” slips out before she can catch herself.

“I think you’re worried about Darious, right?” Morgana says. “I didn’t trust you--honestly, I _still_ don’t-- because no one can be that genuinely concerned about someone they just met.”

She focuses back on Mila. “But, I do know that you at least had a decent idea back there, and you had more balls than me with that gryphon, so…” Morgana faintly blushes, looking away. “I guess you haven’t fucked up that hard yet.”

It takes her a moment, with her mind hyper focused and working overtime, to realize that Morgana just gave her a compliment, in a sense. “Oh, uhh--”

Thankfully, Leeko saves her from dealing with the situation by coming back through the middle tunnel at just the right time. “Hey, I think I’ve got it this time!” he yells down the corridor.

Morgana grumbles and traipses over to him. “Well, time to go get lost again.”

“Hey!”

The two start to argue again, and Mila has to run to catch up to them, passively spectating their conversation. Later, she would appreciate the irony of being too worried over someone she ‘just met’, and she wants to start planning how to drag the full story out of Morgana so that she can help her, but she’s too busy doing a last equipment run-down before they get to the surface. Mila checks her necklace for the right coin, and her sack, weighed down with rocks, is at her side. After a second thought, she puts the coin from the chest in the sack, making sure that it's at the top and that she can pick it out without any problems.

Mila knows she’s not ready, not at all prepared for this encounter, even though she’s done it so many times before. She feels like she's about to pass out from the anxiety, and the strenuous climb up through the cavern isn't helping. But, with some pebbles and a new shiny coin in hand, just this once, she might be able to screw Fate over.

Maybe if she thinks about what Rourkie did to Morgana, she'll be angry enough to punch him a little harder.


	6. Convergence of Being

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the super late update! Like I said, other stuff in my life has been getting in the way, and to be honest, I'm not sure if I'll be able to ever keep a consistent schedule with this work. I don't have any plans to abandon yet, but please be patient as I write.  
> To try to make up for it, this chapter's extra long! I'm going to be trying to shift to longer chapters but less updates to try to fit my schedule. Again, I plan to see this fic through to the end, although we're only at the beginning now. 
> 
> Also, looking for concrit on the action sequence. (Might also be looking for a beta, if anyone's interested in that) Enjoy!

They’re nearing the surface, now. Mila can barely make out the stretches of daylight coming into the cave, but it’s definitely there. The idle conversation sustains itself between the three of them, from Morgana verbally pushing Leeko around for getting lost, Leeko bringing up how awful Morgana was with a map, and Mila even occasionally makes a quip before going back to stewing in her own space.

Somehow, the aimless banter helps calm her down to what’s probably appropriate for the situation.

The roaring heartbeat in her ears subsides a bit, and thankfully, the adrenaline hasn’t fully kicked in yet, so she won’t be tired out for the confrontation with Rourkie, if there is one. The dense bag of rocks at her side gives her something to work with, albeit not with very much, and she’s depending on dumb luck for her plan to succeed.

The plan is to keep everyone alive, which becomes a huge problem when considering each of the crew’s possible deaths. She’d never managed to keep all of them alive before, except for a couple of times where someone, which was admittedly usually her, broke reality. That’s not exactly a viable option though, so she starts ruminating.

The most obvious danger is Darious. He’s literally got a gun to his head, so if she doesn’t act fast enough, Brock’s going to shoot him. On the other hand, if Mila takes the initiative and screws something up, it wouldn’t be very difficult for Brock to pull the trigger anyway. She’s just hoping that Rourkie’s megalomaniac streak delays Brock to give her enough time to do something.

The next worry is Morgana. As far as she could remember, no matter when or how Mila attacked Rourkie, Morgana would always end up getting shot. The simple solution here is to not attack at all and still somehow weasel Darious out, but no ungodly amount of flattery, flirting, or otherwise will convince Rourkie. She’s tried.

Then, when she tried just giving Rourkie the coin, Leeko always ended up dying later when Rourkie attacked them back with _The Pirate’s Fate_ . Worst case scenario, she’ll have to beg and give up the coin as well as the ship, but then she’ll need to circumvent the inescapable Rourkie attack on the seas. Either way, it wouldn’t be favorable for her, and she is _not_ looking forward to dealing with the crew’s judgement.

What was she supposed to do? Sacrifice herself? There are already an abundant amount of problems with that, but she couldn't even imagine how she would go about doing that. It’s not like Rourkie accepts tributes for mercy, and the idea of leaving the rest to fend for themselves left a foul taste in her mouth.

No, the only thing to do was to fight. Being passive or meek wouldn’t save anyone, but she had to be smart about this, or else someone would die anyway.

Besides, if there’s anything Steamchaser taught her, it was that saving lives usually meant killing something else.

Mila probably didn’t need to be as drastic as that, but she definitely isn’t above murder to save her family. She’s done it before, and it had stopped scaring her around the sixth time. The thought of a timeline without Rourkie sounds nice, but the crew’s survival comes first.

If the universe has any amount of sympathy for her, maybe Darious will be perfectly fine.

“Hey, I think we’re almost up there!” Leeko says. He bounces excitedly up the rocky path, and Morgana and Mila trail behind him. The light’s getting a bit brighter; she still couldn’t exactly see the surface due to how the cave formation is angled, but she’s vaguely sure that Leeko’s correct.

Morgana snorts. “Good job, Leeko. It only took us _20 tries_ to find the right way this time, when here I was expecting we’d make it to 25 tries.” She almost wants to laugh at that.

“Hey, we’re here, aren’t we?” Leeko nearly has to start climbing, due to his short stature and the deep incline at the inner mouth of the cave.

“Yeah, whatever. We’re not dead, so good enough.” Morgana grumbles. Mila can empathize with her; despite being a cat with relatively good night vision, she got sick of nearly walking headfirst into the damp walls, and she had stubbed her toe at least two more times on the way back.

They make it up the cliff-like entrance, and the sudden brightness makes her snap her eyes shut. The blinding light pierces through her eyelids as she adjusts to the sharp contrast, but she forces them open anyway.

And, _of course,_ Rourkie is waiting for them, with Darious in tow.

“Good to see you’ve made it out,” Rourkie chides. “You’ve got the coin, don’t you, Morgy?” The long, loose captain’s jacket hangs off his shoulders, and his coarse fur rustles in the small winds that blow by. His chin is ever so slightly uplifted, and in spite of being the second-smallest person in the area, he exudes dominance and arrogance over the area.

Of course, his oppressive presence is aided by the fact that Darious is tied up behind him with Brock jamming a blunderbuss pistol into his cheek and Mary uninterestedly tracing circles in the sand with her blade with dried blood on it, but Rourkie takes point between the three of them.

Morgana’s stunned, but her aggression quickly takes over. “Don’t fucking call me that, you bastard!”  She steps forward towards Rourkie, although she doesn’t bother to close the gap between them any further. “Say it again, and I’ll rip out your throat.”

“What’s wrong, _Morgy_?” He draws out his words and crosses his arms, leaning backwards. “Finally realized that you made the wrong choice sticking with this riff-raff? The ship will always be a home for you, you know. Just say the words.”

Mila can see Morgana’s jaw clench so hard that her teeth audibly grind against each other as she slowly moves her hand towards the hilt of her shortsword. It’s not very subtle or covert, at least from where Mila’s standing, and judging by how Rourkie grins as he eyes her movements, there’s no way that Rourkie doesn’t notice it.

He’s playing with them, Mila belatedly realizes. It comes as a simple fact, an observation made time after time, and it feels familiarly suffocating, like she’s drowning in the deep, dark sea right next to them.

It also makes her crazy, thrown-together plan look a lot less plausible to work, but hell if that’s going to stop her.

“How did you find us?” Morgana demands.

“Unfortunately, it seems as if our good friend Abby had disappeared in the night. Funny thing, don’t you think?” He sighs, and points to Darious over his shoulder. “So, we thought that we’d go ask your Captain if he knew where she was, but it just so happened that we’re searching for the same treasure, so _of course_ we couldn’t just let your darling little Darious leave alone when your ship set off sailing.”

“So, w-wait, you followed us?” Leeko blurts out.

Rourkie laughs and the tone of condescension oozes out of the noise. “What do you think, you subservient mutt?” Leeko grimaces and tries to look away but it doesn’t really work when the threat of death is in the air.

“Anyway,” he gestures, “I’m sure you know what to do.” He makes a ‘come-hither’ gesture with his hand, index finger wagging back and forth a few times. “Hand over my coin, and no one has to die.”

“Screw that! You’re just going to kill him anyway!” Morgana accuses, but if Mila squints, she can see the slightest tremble in her shoulders. Morgana partly turns to her, keeping her chest open towards Rourkie in case of an attack. “Don’t you fucking think about giving away the coin, Mila, or I _swear to God I’ll--”_

“Oh, Morgy. Always the mistrustful one, aren’t you? “ Rourkie says. “How ironic, considering that you betrayed our crew.” Morgana glares at him with the force of a thousand suns, but he doesn’t seem like he notices. “I just want to make a deal. You merchant types should know the importance of good business, no?” Rourkie addresses her directly, ignoring Morgana. “Wouldn’t it be better to have some simple cordial negotiation? We get we want, and you get what you want. It’s that simple, you know.”

Maybe if it was her first time, when she didn’t know what the possible choices were, she would’ve given in. Rourkie’s voice has a low dulcet tone to it, which makes it on the border of being entrancing. Add that to the fact that guns were being involved, and it very well might’ve happened.

It’s not like she remembers what her first time was like, so maybe she would have agreed back then. 

Darious tries to do some weird unrehearsed eye signalling to her in lieu of speaking up, but she has no idea what on earth he wants her to do, even if she was interested in following orders. Leeko’s probably speechless from fear, and Morgana looks positively molten with anger, but there’s no way that Morgana would disobey Darious’s orders and do anything drastic. From here on out, she’s on her own, although one could argue that she had been so from the start.

“What are you going to do if I give you the coin?” she says. Good start. That’s more likely to elicit a response and hopefully makes it sound as if she’s genuinely considering taking his deal. “How do I know you won’t kill Darious anyway?”

Rourkie gets a glint in his eyes. “My darling, how could you accuse me of such a thing? I make good on my deals, as you’ve seen back at the inn.”

“You’re a literal pirate,” she says flatly, and Mila immediately kicks herself for snarking him.

Fortunately, Rourkie takes it in stride. “Oh, deary, aren’t we all? I know that they’ve tried to tell you that the ‘Dread Pirates’ is just a name to get you inducted into their little crew, but we both know the truth. Besides, how do you know that they themselves won’t stab you in the back as soon as they get that little coin off your neck? Morgy’s looking awfully angry right about now.”

As Mila instinctually glances back, she catches Morgana’s flinch, but she remains indignant. “Stop listening to that cheating jackass of a rabbit! That’s an order, Mila!”

Rourkie scoffs. “See what I mean, my dear? These ruffians don’t care about your own opinion or honest business. They just want more spineless servants like that little puppy over there,” he gestures at Leeko, who’s quivering too much to give a real response, “to order around. I bet that your precious ‘Captain’ hasn’t told you some of the dirtiest places that we’ve caught him at. Did you know that he left his sickly parents to go off gallivanting for useless treasures he would never sell, even if he could save his family? He turns slightly to somewhat face his hostage. “What say you, Darious?”

“Mila, don’t listen to him! You know the power of the coins! They can’t be gi--” he lets out a wet cough as Brock elbows the back of his neck, and he nearly collapses.

 _‘Honest business’, huh?_ , Mila thinks as she watches Darious buckle. _Can’t possibly think of anything being more honest than taking hostages_.

Rourkie focuses back on her. “Not even your so-called honorable captain would protect his precious family. Who can you really trust, Mila? Why waste lives over some meaningless coins? Just hand it over, and we’ll release your captain.”

Mila has to will herself to take a step forward, as if the slightest misstep would guarantee someone’s death, which might even be true. She crosses one of her arms and rubs the back of her neck with the other. Rourkie’s a cunning manipulator, but if there’s anything she’s learned about Rourkie in all her timelines, it’s that he likes having power over people.

She can hear Morgana guffaw behind her. However, she lets her go on uninhibited, which is a surprise. She’s sure that Morgana would do something to stop her from disobeying Darious, but it’s a lucky boon that she’s willing to take.

Mila takes the sack at her waist and holds it in front of her chest. Before Rourkie starts to form a question, she deftly picks out the coin hidden there back in the cave. “This is all of the coins that we found down there, plus some from the ship.”

“Mila, what are--” Darious starts to say before she scowls at him. 

 _Please just work with me here_ , she attempts to communicate with her eyes alone. He promptly shuts up, though he still looks confused.

Returning her attention to Rourkie in front of her, she says, “Darious wanted me to be the ship’s treasurer, of sorts. He figured that, since I already had a coin, I’d be fit to carry them with me.”

Rourkie smirks delightedly at the bag. “Why, Darious, shame on you for keeping such a large treasure haul to yourself. Your naivety did save your life in the end, so it was good for something, I suppose.”

Never minding the fact that he had just indirectly insulted the both of them, Mila slips the coin back inside the sack and tightens the knot holding it closed. Thankfully, the leather conceals the imprint of the pebbles and muffles the sound of metal on rock. “I assume that you want all of them, Rourkie?” 

“Tell you what, dear,” he whispers conspiratorially, as if he was making a naughty deal with her. “I’ll do you a favor, and I’ll leave you with the one on your neck for having some common sense.” Internally, she let out a wave of relief. She had been depending on that far too much to be comfortable. If she didn’t have Indigo’s coin with her, she would’ve had to improvise on the spot.

Back at the inn, while Morgana and Darious were having a scuffle with Rourkie, she had taken out the coin from her amulet and replaced it with the coin that Indigo had given her. Only God knows what exactly it does, but she’s banking on the fact that Indigo would never lie to her; he had always been a fan of brutal honesty, after all.

_“Why are you giving me a coin right before I leave, Indigo? You know I hate these damn things, and it’s not like it’s going to carry over anyway,” she said. Indigo had stopped her from entering the now cracked mirror to call her down into the center platform of the library. He had pressed a golden coin in her hands, and she looked at it with disgust._

“ _You see, Mila, I made this coin myself. Consider it a special present from me to you. You may find that it is especially useful on a certain cursed coast as well as other transformative locations. I suggest that you use it to keep yourself out of danger, but it’s your money, isn’t it?_ ” _He smirked and looked like he was about to giggle. “And yes, that’s all I’m going to tell you about it.”_

Looking back, he was probably trying to play the part of a storybook mysterious mentor just for his own enjoyment, but Mila looked at the coin with a new reverence. Still, she had no idea what the coin actually does. It could transform her into a million different things, and Mila might regret it later, but she has to take the risk.

“Let Darious go first, or you’re not getting the coins at all, Rourkie,” she says.

“Dear, do you really think you’re in a position to negotiate? How do I know that you won’t ditch us as soon as he’s released?” Rourkie snarls.

“I could say the same to you,” she shoots back. “And anyways, I mean it. I’m not giving you anything until Darious doesn’t have a gun pointed to his head.”

“Fine, let’s have it your way. Brock, step away from our little captain.” 

“Wait, Rourkie, are you seriously going to listen to that cat?!” Brock shouts, but lowers the gun anyway.

“Are you deaf? Get to it, before I personally cut you up myself!” Rourkie shouts. Brock practically jumps away from Darious in response, but he stays in firing distance. “There, dear, are you satisfied? Now, what’ll it be?”

He’s getting impatient now, she thinks. Mila doesn’t know how much longer she can drag this out, but she has to make a choice right now. Previously, she had always seen it between choosing who would die, which was a morbid thought in and of itself, but now she has foresight and a new shiny coin, so who knows? She might even get her happy ending this time.

 

* * *

 

Darious is getting especially antsy now. He has no idea what the hell Mila is doing, and he frankly didn’t appreciate it, despite his gratefulness when the gun leaves his head. His imminent death was delayed by her actions, but it isn’t as if they wouldn’t kill him seconds later, unless she was seriously considering handing the coin over, which was a massive problem.

He didn’t understand why she would ever think of making a deal with Rourkie. She apparently knew how dangerous the coins were in the wrong hands, and even he only had scraps of the coins’ true power. She had taught him the bit about literal transformations (which, granted, made a lot more sense than any of his own theories), so is she trying to get the coins to backfire on Rourkie somehow?

Either way, it was a bad idea, and Mila knows it, going by how she hesitates to go through with the deal. For a moment, he almost believes that she would listen to his orders and refuse the deal after all.

He wants to yell at her to stop, kick down Rourkie, do anything to prevent the coins from reaching Rourkie, but all of those things would likely end in him getting shot. At the very least, when he died, Morgana could carry on his legacy, and he knew she would hunt down Rourkie to the ends of the earth.

And then something strange happens.

Maybe it’s heat exhaustion or the nervous tension he’s been building up since Rourkie captured him, but he could swear that Mila is beginning to glow in a purple light. 

“I don’t like having my time wasted, kitty,” Rourkie says. “Clock’s ticking.”

Mila remains silent, and he thinks he’s hallucinating when he sees Mila becoming… plumper, or perhaps larger? Her clothing almost shifts from her more coastal style to what he could only describe as summer fashion. The sleeves seem to recede, her hair starts to grow bushier, and her turban-like hat expands into a wide brim.  He glances at the crew to gauge their reactions to the change, but it’s as if they don’t see anything. Even Rourkie doesn’t have any suspicions about what’s unfolding beyond him. 

Darious jumps to the conclusion that it must be some magical effect of the coin, but when he looks at Mila again, the changes have already disappeared as she walks forward with the bag in hand.

 

* * *

 

Leeko has to make the effort to look up from under his large hat after he cringes when Mila takes another step towards Rourkie, which develops into a cautious tread. He can’t stand the thought of Darious dying, but really, there isn’t any other choice here. Mila was trying to do an impossible task. 

The few encounters he had with Rourkie always ended poorly for them, but Rourkie’s crew usually were chased off by an angry Morgana. Now, if Morgana goes haywire like she normally does, Darious gets shot, no questions asked. The same thing would probably happen if Mila gives Rourkie the coin, so really, what was the point?

No, the smartest thing here would be to do nothing. Wait until they inevitably kill Darious, and then wait for Morgana to go off at them. He hated himself for thinking that they had to let Darious die like that, but it was the best possible scenario.  (Is it really? Can’t he do anything at all?)

They would be able to keep all the coins, they had a chance of making it out alive, and Morgana might be able to get a revenge kill as a bonus or something. When looking at it like that, giving the coins to Rourkie would be the worst option.

Although, if  Leeko is honest, he wouldn’t mind trading the coins for their lives. The plan to go ‘change the world with the power of the coins’ seemed like a stupid idea from the onset. From what Darious had briefly told him, it was only a children’s story that they were searching for. Sure, the coins actually exist, but are they really worth Darious’s life?

If only Rourkie was telling the truth. It’s so unmistakably obvious that Rourkie would kill him in the end anyway, even if Brock was standing a meter or two away, that he couldn’t believe that Mila would be so oblivious to believe him. 

He watches Mila so intently that he notices something weird about her. It’s like her clothes are shifting around her body to the point where she has an uncanny resemblance of a belly dancer. Her breasts look more pronounced, and she’s no longer wearing her cap, exposing all of her curled hair.

 Is he really that much of a perverted old man to see Mila like that in this sort of situation? As he takes in Mila’s appearance, Leeko blinks, and it’s all gone back to normal.

* * *

 

Morgana doesn’t know what to do anymore. She’s on the verge of pulling her sword out and charging in, but that would just get either her or Darious killed. This damn cat was ruining the Captain’s entire mission, but on the other hand, it might be the only way to get him to live. 

As much as she wanted to kill Rourkie, there’s a wriggling feeling inside her to trust his word. She loathes her own thoughts that Rourkie might not be a completely horrible person, because she’s been through this same process multiple times before. Each and every time Morgana wants to go back and redeem Rourkie or some other bullshit, Darious has to remind her that she’s not responsible for the asshole.

More than that, Morgana desperately wants Darious to live. He was the only person to have ever given her a sense of being her own person and saved her from being codependent on Rourkie, blindly following him in his adventures. Her life stopped revolving around Rourkie, and though it felt extremely hypocritical to start following Darious instead, it was different somehow. He had never asked her to do anything for him, and Darious definitely was higher up on the moral compass. 

Now, Mila had taken control of their side of the confrontation, and it was up to her to decide who lives and who dies. 

Morgana would’ve gladly stay put like Darious ordered them to a few minutes ago, but because Darious hasn’t died yet throughout all of this, she has hope. They can always kill Rourkie later, if not now, for the coins, and no one had all of the coins in the first place. The world wasn’t going to end if they just gave away the coins now, and Darious would still be alive.

It’s only that line of thinking that stop her from pointing her blade at Rourkie’s throat, but it wasn’t as if she believed Rourkie about the crap he was spouting. Rourkie would definitely backstab them at some point during this exchange, no doubt about it. However, she wanted so badly to believe that Mila could get Darious out of there, because Morgana didn’t have a chance in hell of doing the same.

As she flip-flops between deciding to charge in to stop Mila or to pummel Rourkie’s face in, a brief glance at Mila commands her attention. Morgana had no idea what it is, but Mila suddenly looks a lot more badass than she remembers her being. She seemed muscular, fierce, and there’s a glint of light that she almost mistakes for a sword. 

Maybe it’s all her in head though, because as she belatedly realizes that Mila is tightly gripping the bag and pulling back with her arm, she’s the same bitch of a cat she’s always been.

 

* * *

 

She flings the bag as hard she can towards Brock, hoping that it hits its target. By some miracle, her plan pays off as the rock-laden sack beans him right in the head, and he nearly topples over. 

Mila rushes forward past a startled Rourkie as soon as she throws it, but Brock already has his gun up, disoriented from the hit he’d taken. Mila starts zig-zagging in random patterns, _just anywhere away from Morgana_ , and Brock fires the blunderbuss.

It narrowly misses her, which leaves a shallow puncture near her left thigh. She staggers a bit, but she picks herself back up quickly.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Mila charges towards Brock, kicking up the sand as she runs.  Brock fumbles with the gun, struggling to reload it. She hears Morgana give out a guttural scream along with the clashing of metal, and as Mila glances back, she’s holding off Rourkie and Mary simultaneously. Morgana doesn’t look like she’s winning, but she’s alive.

Good, one life saved.

She only has one shot to get the gun away from him, so Mila has her eyes set on his vitals. It'll be a dirty, underhanded move, but she's well past that by now, and isn't she supposed to be a pirate anyway? 

Running into Brock, she slams her knee as hard as she can into his crotch.

He howls at the sudden impact, retching with pain, and collapses, though not before Mila can get the smoking pistol out of his hand. She immediately lobs it down the coastline, far enough so that none of them can get to it.

With the gun gone, she checks another life saved off of her list. Leeko and Tam-Tam couldn't be guaranteed right now, but Mila's already doing much better than her past lives, so she'd call it a win.

Turning back around, she jumps to the tied-up Darious and begins to mangle apart the complicated knot binding him, only stopping when she shifts the rope in a messier, more jumbled position.

Mila almost curses Indigo’s coin for not providing her a new sword, but she supposes that preventing the transformation was already asking for too much. Honestly, she was probably expecting the coin to turn her into some hellish monstrosity. If the coin prevented transformations, then that could be very useful indeed.

She leans around Darious so that he can see her. “Darious, do you have a knife on yo-”

“In my left pocket, Mila, what are you doing?!”

“I’m on a crusade to save the holy land,” she deadpans. When Darious gives her a queer look, she sighs in exasperation. “What do you think I’m doing, Darious?!” 

She blindly gropes the inside of his coat until she feels the wooden handle and pulls it out. It makes short work of Darious’s binds as she attacks the knot, but before she can finish it, Mila spots Rourkie push Morgana back with his sword and do a complete 180 towards the two of them. 

She doesn't have enough time to get though the rest of the rope, and there's no way that Mila was going to let Darious die now, after everything. Saying _screw it_ , she shoves Darious to the ground on impulse, and he yelps. Rourkie slashes overhead with his cutlass, to which Mila tries to parry with the knife. The blade slips off the flat side of the knife, but Rourkie forces the blade down harder. It catches her by surprise, and a large strip of her arm gets sawed off. The chunk of muscle and tissue slops to the ground.

"ARGH!" Mila cries out in pain, and she can't muster the force to keep holding the knife, so she lets it fall. With Rourkie preparing to strike again and no other options, she instinctively barrels into his chest, pushing with all of her force.

“Wha-”

The collision knocks the wind out of her as she wraps her arms around his abdomen, smearing slimy sweat and blood over the cloth of his jacket. As they hit the ground, the impact bounces them apart. They both tumble wildly, red blood splattering onto the pale sand. Mila lands face down directly onto her bleeding arm, which shoots a searing agony up through to her elbow. She leans on that arm into the ground, trying to stem the worryingly large amount of bleeding and relieve the white hot pain.

Mila doesn’t even notice when Rourkie scrambles to his feet, and for an instant, her world goes white as Rourkie smashes his boot into her other outstretched arm with a sickening crunch.

Her body is wracked with pain, both sides flashing immense amounts of pain. The adrenaline overtakes her, leaving Mila exhausted, and the dryness of her mouth amplifies against the hot sand.

“Not so clever now, huh, bitch?” Rourkie says maniacally above her, but she can hardly hear it with her both of her arms pulsing erratically. “I think I’ll relish in cutting you up this time. I tried to be fair with you, but you just had to play the hero, didn’t you?"

She tries to struggle against the immense weight on her left, but every jostling of movement sends another burning streak across the upper half of her body. An overwhelming fear washes over her as Rourkie makes the first cut.

She might really die here.

There's an inordinate amount of time between each slash. Some go deeper than others, and the slick blood mixes with her sweat, creating a painful and revolting sensation as Rourkie practically flays the thin layers of skin off her back. After a while, he stops, as if trying to make a decision as to where to cut open next.

Mila can feel the phantom tip of Rourkie’s cutlass teasingly glide over her open back for what seems like an eternity when they’re interrupted by a deafening shriek.

“What the hell is that?!”

“Boss, it’s coming straight for you!”

The weight over her broken arm gets suddenly removed as Rourkie gets blown back by a monstrous gryphon diving into him. Mila’s arm aches with agony due to the release of pressure, and it’s all she can do to stay awake.

“Boss!”

Rourkie yells, “You idiots! Get running already!” Mila can hear his heavy breathing as he sprints away, along with Mary and a stumbling Brock. 

She barely has the energy to turn her head so that she can try to spit out the grainy sand in her mouth, but Mila’s attempts prove fruitless as she lays helplessly on the ground, like a puppet with its strings cut.

She’s on the verge of unconsciousness, she can tell, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep her eyes open. 

 _It wouldn’t be too bad_ , she muses, _to die like this_ . Her friends are alive, the coins are safe, and Rourkie isn’t here. _Probably beats being hanged or getting possessed by a power-hungry poltergeist._

But it would be selfish of her to forego everything she’s came here for, her need to protect the Dread Pirates and _The_ _Pirate’s Fate_ , her ambition to stop the coins from damaging the world ever again, her bloodthirsty vengeance on Rourkie and Queen Nahkta and Lazerby, and most importantly, to live with her newfound family for the rest of her days, just to die now on this damn beach.

Mila was going to live along with everyone’s normal, unchanged, and alive selves, and Fate could go screw itself over for all she cared.


End file.
